An entertaining, fast-paced, and thoughtful debut thriller.
In this thriller, an investigative journalist suffers several near-death experiences while trying to clear his name after being falsely accused of murder.
After three years in Austin, Texas, as a TV investigative journalist, Peter Richards loses his job. Life only gets worse. Peter is ambushed during a prospective job interview with accusations he’d invented a story and ruined lives: “You’re a joke to this industry. A joke and a liar, Peter.” Not only that, the interview is recorded and shown on the 6 o’clock news. Peter becomes the chief suspect in the murder investigation of his neighbor Janice Walton. He’d seen suspicious activity—an albino florist picking up a banker’s box from Janice—and then witnessed a Department of Public Safety trooper shooting Janice. Peter calls 911, but evidence turns up implicating him. Not only that, the stress causes him a temporarily fatal heart attack. He’s revived and given a new “Electro-Flux heart,” but he’s arrested and handcuffed to the bed. Nevertheless, Peter manages to slip the hospital and investigation. Getting hold of the banker’s box, he discovers files related to a company called Endochrone, which has patented a new Alzheimer’s drug. Why were these files kept separate? What makes them dangerous to Endochrone? And is there any way out of the conspiracy that threatens to close its grip on Peter, his wife, and his child? In his debut novel, Barney writes an enjoyably fast-paced thriller that’s strengthened by Peter’s voice, which is intelligent, funny, and rueful: “I’m not really a block party kind of guy, I’m more of a sit at home and judge type of person.” Peter is a complex figure with an admirable ability to keep his head, and even minor characters get well-written back stories. The mystery twists and turns with unexpected developments, action, and suspense. Distracting errors abound, however: “You’re [sic] life, as you know it, is nothing but a small spec [sic] of sand on a beach the size of a million galaxy’s [sic].”
An entertaining, fast-paced, and thoughtful debut thriller.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9965888-0-5
Page Count: 262
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
