Gore nerds will appreciate this canny update of the trashy horror/SF potboilers of yesteryear.
On the eve of a community festival, a small Wisconsin town suffers attacks from giant, bloodthirsty mutant ticks in Micklos’ horror novel.
Tomahawk Hollow is a rural Wisconsin town heavily dependent on the tourism trade—the annual Jubilee festival is a key attraction. It is a bit of a problem, then, when hideous, waist-high, intelligent mutant ticks come out of the woods (which are home to a defunct pesticide plant). The savage monsters ravenously attack humans and animals alike, draining their blood and leaving a trail of carnage. Emmaline Blackdeer, a young reporter for the failing local newspaper, and her mentor-editor, Jackson Reed, attempt to investigate, but the corrupt mayor, Silas Cankerby, and a sinister squad of German mercenaries undermine their efforts with a coverup of apocalyptic proportions. Will Tomahawk Hollow survive? Will humanity? Readers of a certain age may recall the lurid horror paperbacks found in the spinner racks and airport gift shops of the previous century, with their schlocky scenarios of nature and animals run amok; memorable titles from the genre include The Swarm (1974), Slither (1986), Night of the Crabs (1976), and, of course, Jaws (1974). Here, first-time author Micklos (who is also a horror filmmaker) entertainingly hits just about all cliches in the formula, from gratuitous opening-pages sex to the community celebration-turned-bloodbath to corporate corruption to the sequel-friendly ending. (“The closest tick was nearly on him, though, rising slightly on its hind legs as if gloating over its prey. Its harpoon-like hypostome extended from its mouthparts like a hideous, barbed erection,” reads one lurid passage.) Unlike, say, Brian Wilford’s similar Rise of the Jellies (2024), there is no obvious comic spoofing; Micklos has the doom-serious tone down to a T (for tick) and plays the slaughter with a perfectly straight face, escalating skillfully and with a minimum of padding to the absurdly violent showdown in the heart of the hell-spawned tick nest. The downside is a never-less-than-predictable narrative arc; still, splatter-punk fans who relish such material will not be disappointed.
Gore nerds will appreciate this canny update of the trashy horror/SF potboilers of yesteryear.Pub Date: June 23, 2025
ISBN: 9798991785549
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Castle Bridge Media
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2025
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
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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