Sharp characters enmeshed in a mystery that, particularly in its final lap, is a gleefully dizzy ride.
The sole survivor of a killer’s attack searches for the murderer she believes she can identify in Greyson’s (Jack of Hearts, 2017, etc.) psychological thriller.
Faith Winters is nearly 23 when her yearlong stay at Brookdale Mental Health Hospital mercifully ends. She’s been in and out of institutions for a decade since evading an assailant at a multiple-murder scene. Police have closed the case, surmising a murder-suicide. They theorize that Faith’s dad, Michael, killed three people—his lover; Faith’s bestie; and Faith’s older sister, Kim—before shooting himself. But Faith thinks the partially obscured man she saw attack Kim at the family cabin is the same individual she had spotted earlier and dubbed “Rat Face.” Her release from Brookdale requires she regularly see a therapist and attend AA meetings, and she soon frequents a support group for survivors. Downing multiple whiskey shots is a setback, and it’s also why others have trouble believing Faith when she says she’s seen Rat Face again. She made the same claim over a year ago, prompting a public outburst that ended with her most recent stay at Brookdale. Certain the cops won’t help her, Faith starts her own hunt for Rat Face. The threat of a killer’s presence becomes tangible when someone following Faith starts humming “Happy Birthday,” just like the murderer did. Greyson’s dark, twisting mystery employs considerably less humor than his Detective Jack Stratton series. While Jack’s investigations often feel like adventures, Faith is perpetually tortured by internal forces (e.g., alcoholism) or unknown menaces. The novel, however, isn’t entirely bleak. Characters come with an array of fascinating subplots. Faith’s mom, Beverly, for example, is a therapist who, in order to overcome her own psychological turmoil, wrote a book about her daughter’s survival that brought Faith unwanted notoriety. Faith herself is a strong, confident protagonist. Even after someone terrifies her in the woods, she remains an amateur sleuth and makes a remarkable deduction. She’s also not above cynicism, like pointing out the irony of the group of survivors: everyone seems dreary instead of happily sharing survival stories and “high-fiving each other or something.” The narrative further strengthens Faith as a character with her recurring memories of Kim and the night in question. These images aptly showcase her determination in unmasking a murderer while struggling with her tenuous mental state. The mystery, too, is indelible. Though readers get an early indication as to Rat Face’s identity, there is plenty to unravel, including the possibility of someone else’s involvement in the murders. Nevertheless, it’s during the final act when the plot turns come fast and furious. It’s a convoluted but exhilarating ending with a few surprises and perhaps a red herring or two.
Sharp characters enmeshed in a mystery that, particularly in its final lap, is a gleefully dizzy ride.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68399-303-2
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Greyson Media Associates
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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