Gloomy, suspenseful, and sometimes messy tales.
A collection offers short stories with dark themes.
In an introduction to this volume, Fennell notes: “For the longest time, I couldn’t write directly about mental health.” Nonfiction could not clearly convey his experiences “as someone who lived and loved next to” mental health disorders, and so he opted for fiction: a different kind of truth. Death and familial dysfunction haunt these tales. In the opening story, “Under a Big Moon,” a mother sips a concoction of lemonade and antifreeze. Women who have lost custody of their children turn to drinking and sex work. Kids are frequently orphaned and babies are occasionally murdered, their faces “stiff and blue with dead round eyes pointing to the sky.” The ambitious collection works best in two ways. First, when one story calls back to another. In “The Witch in the Woods,” the title character offers a child a glass of lemonade and the kid thinks “with antifreeze,” skillfully echoing “Under a Big Moon.” More impressive is when a tale finds moments of tenderness to balance the bleakness—a dying man fondly remembers sunshine and his children going off to school. Yet the collection often delivers a single tone: grim. Many of Fennell’s stories, which employ different narrative techniques, create effective tension and suspense. For example, one tale is narrated in direct address: “You look amazing, but there is no one there to tell you, and so I whisper it to you.” Another story is narrated in the third person: “She came out there, and the young girl, Rachael, looked at the…woman.” Unfortunately, some of the tales are confusing. The dialogue is frequently not inside quotation marks and lacks tags to identify the speakers. Readers will find it difficult to disentangle what is dialogue, who the speakers are, and what is narration. The result is that the audience must search for clarity.
Gloomy, suspenseful, and sometimes messy tales.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77728-101-4
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Firenze Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Come for the forensics, stay for the nonhumans.
A Christmas bout between Kay Scarpetta and the Phantom Slasher.
But first, Scarpetta, Virginia’s chief medical examiner, has to figure out how software designer Rowdy O’Leary died. Fished from the Potomac River on Christmas Eve six years after a hit-and-run driver left him permanently disabled and a week after he plunked down the cash for a pricey emerald ring, he fell off his fishing perch and drowned—or did he? Scarpetta’s examination of his body is cut short by two disturbing developments: the discovery of an unidentified woman’s remains buried on the grounds of Mercy Psychiatric Hospital, and celebrity TV reporter Dana Diletti’s report that the red-eyed ghost associated with the Slasher’s three murders has floated through the window of her home. She’s got video, too, and the apparition looks real and scary. The final blow to Scarpetta’s plans for a Christmas getaway with her husband, Secret Service forensic psychologist Benton Wesley, is an attack on an Alexandria home that kills Mercy psychiatrist Georgine Duvall, who used to treat Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy Farinelli, and nearly kills graduate student Zain Willard, White House intern and nephew of presidential candidate Sen. Calvin Willard. This time the Slasher’s ghost has been spotted on the scene by none other than Pete Marino, head of investigations for the medical examiner’s office and Scarpetta’s longtime sidekick. Cornwell’s use of Robbie, Zain’s robotic dog, and Janet, Lucy’s AI companion, integrates the futuristic elements she favors more successfully than in her recent outings. But the solutions to all these mysteries will leave fans of the venerable franchise pursing their lips rather than gasping in awe.
Come for the forensics, stay for the nonhumans.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538773963
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
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