An often entertaining read about political corruption, romance and hope for a better future.
In Turner’s debut novel, career CIA agent Kat Hastings uncovers the shocking truth behind John F. Kennedy’s assassination and confronts her own troubled relationship with her father.
Kat Hastings is pushing 60 and yet still finds herself doing the bidding of her boss, Ben, and her emotionally unavailable spy father, the cryptically named H2. The former wants her to explore a CIA vault that supposedly contains secrets relating to JFK’s assassination, while the latter wants her to refrain from exploring her passions. She obeys both men, until she realizes just how potentially revolutionary each discovery could be. She uncovers JFK’s brain in a canister, and finds a renewed passion for former lover and investigative reporter Robbie. Her allegiance to her rigid code of conduct is tested to the limit; she even flat-out lies to her supervisor about sharing information with Robbie, ruining an otherwise unblemished service record. Much like the Tom Clancy canon, the novel purposefully employs a patriotic, dedicated protagonist to deepen the shock of her discovery of corruption. Turner’s heavily researched conjectures on the assassination and its subsequent effect on the national psyche are thought-provoking, if not necessarily original. More surprising is how vividly Turner realizes her characters, at least for most of the book. Robbie, for example, is quickly fleshed out in only a few sentences: “ ‘My wife died.’ He traced his scar. His pain seemed fresh. For the first time, I noticed the years etched into his face.” The novel’s final third, however, devolves into a jumble of false confidences and hidden identities, along with torture and double crosses. However, the author demonstrates a solid grasp of community dynamics and the often disappointing complexity of adult relationships. Her prose reveals a softness with a noirish, Chandler-esque edge: “He could be as cold, hard, and secretive as the file cabinets that flanked him.” Readers seeking a somber yet probing inquiry into the limits of romance, duty and renewal late in life will relish Kat’s attempts to balance the needs of her heart with the realities of national security.
An often entertaining read about political corruption, romance and hope for a better future.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492346302
Page Count: 360
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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