A well-plotted tale that’s more about the mystery than the murder.
A tenure-track professor’s life gets truly complicated when she realizes there might be a murderer working in her department.
In Dellasega’s (Locomotive Lullaby [2023], etc.) first crime novel, married mother-of-two professor Lacey Redd has a lot on her mind as the fall 1998 semester begins at Mountain State University, where she teaches in the College of Biology. If she doesn’t make tenure, the family’s income will suffer drastically. But her boss, Dr. Geoffrey Hart, has it in for her after she raises concerns about his claim to fame: the Supplemental Iron in Menopause Study (SIMS). This is the study that earned Hart media press, major government funding, and scientific awards. After Lacey discovers errors in the findings of this newly dubbed “academic rock star,” she asks her best friend and head of the department’s computer lab, Sandy Kaye, to dig into Hart’s data. Soon after, Sandy is found dead. Despite indications that she died from an overdose, Lacey thinks she was poisoned. Lacey’s husband, a recovering alcoholic who’s fallen off the wagon lately, is annoyed by Lacey’s suspicions. She then leans into the support of her co-worker, full professor Sam Miller, who soon has her “primping like a…giddy schoolgirl acting on a flirtation.” Lacey trusts—and lusts for—Miller, even though he shares a bond with Hart, since both graduated from the same Ivy League school. The book has plenty of dramatic moments: between Lacey and her husband, between Lacey and her mom, and between Lacey and her university. Conversations ring true, and characters seem realistic (and besides, one is a cute dog). The time frame for the book spans the fall of 1998 through summer of 1999, allowing for the fact that women’s representation on the faculty would be less prominent than it would be today. The Hitchcockian ending is a creepy pleasure. Many readers will enjoy Lacey’s doggedness in solving the murder, but others may be put off by the explicit sexual crimes.
A well-plotted tale that’s more about the mystery than the murder.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798896363569
Page Count: 304
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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