A character-driven tale that maintains its sincerity even in its most nerve-wracking moments.
In Beakey’s (Double Abduction, 2007) thriller, an investigation into a tragic accident during a blizzard reveals a string of secrets—including a murder.
When Stephen Porter’s 17-year-old daughter, Sara, calls to tell him that she’s stranded, he willingly braves a relentless blizzard to rescue her. He tracks down the address that she gives him, and he’s worried that she’s not at a girlfriend’s house, as she’d earlier claimed, but at the home of a man in his late 20s. That man is Kieran O’Shea, who’s 10 years Sara’s senior and a teacher at her school. Sara is tutoring his younger, autistic brother, Aidan, but tonight she and Kieran were spending some time alone. Sara, however, learns more about Kieran than she wanted to know, particularly after she happens upon a box of medication. She decides to go home soon after he hops in his truck to find Aidan, who ran out of the house; she calls Stephen when her own car fails to start. A subsequent mishap results in a death, and the person responsible is suddenly at the mercy of a witness. Investigating detective John Caruso believes that the incident may also tie in with the recent murder of a local teacher—and the resulting coverups only lead to more violence. The tension starts high in this novel, with a description of the sounds of a winter storm (“The blizzard winds hit the bedroom windows with brute-force, the wump sounds registering in the recesses of Stephen Porter’s mind”). Beakey parallels his thriller plot with an engaging family drama; for example, it’s revealed that Stephen’s wife, Lori, died when her car struck a guardrail—a collision that the insurance company is now claiming was suicide. Kieran, meanwhile, is haunted by his late, abusive mother, while Stephen’s son, Kenneth, is the target of a bully. Beakey maintains the suspense by continually hinting at what characters may or may not have done, and Sara and Stephen are both in dire straits by the final act. It’s all packaged within a taut narrative that constantly reminds readers of the bitter-cold weather that constrains the characters, as when Stephen, without a car, breaks “into an unsteady near-run, heedless of the hard-packed ice underneath his feet.”
A character-driven tale that maintains its sincerity even in its most nerve-wracking moments.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68261-154-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
