A novel that methodically works its way to the end, ensuring a well-whetted appetite for mystery.
An Oregon lawyer learns that he has a 5-year-old daughter but soon finds himself a murder suspect when the girl’s mother turns up dead in Smith’s debut thriller.
Guy Phillips and his wife, Sarah, have been hoping for a pregnancy in vain. They’re both in for a shock when Guy’s old flame Andrea Young shows up at their door in Portland with little Cesca in tow, saying the child is his. Guy’s determined to be a part of Cesca’s life, even if Andrea and boyfriend Darren Adams are raising the girl in Dallas. Mere months after the big surprise, however, cops find Andrea’s body floating in a lake, dead from gunshots. Detective Chuck Davis faces a formidable case. Andrea had her fair share of lovers over the years, and Cesca could give either Guy or Darren a motive. Moreover, retired cop Frank Young suspects his daughter-in-law might have had something to do with his missing son, Pete, who disappeared without a trace six years ago. No one possesses a very strong alibi, but Guy’s possible reignited affair with Andrea bumps him to the top spot on Chuck’s suspect list. A second homicide makes Guy look even more questionable, forcing him to prove his innocence by pointing authorities to the real killer. The story’s opening is a doozy: readers discover what happened to Pete. Smith follows this up by smartly revealing Andrea’s death early in the novel and then flashing back to her Portland visit. Chuck’s investigation—interrogating Guy, Darren, and Andrea’s mom, Lori, while detecting the occasional lie—is certainly engrossing. Guy, too, boasts a gleefully complex and somewhat shady background. But the Cesca subplot with its dramatically rich core nearly upstages the murder mystery. Both the girl’s biological father and the man who raised her, for example, have sound reasoning for why they should have custody. They also make superb potential killers, and Smith spins the final act into a plot dense with feasible murderers and homicide scenarios. It’s twisty but logical and, best of all, not easy to predict.
A novel that methodically works its way to the end, ensuring a well-whetted appetite for mystery.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2016
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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