A fast-paced collision of small-town violence and delayed justice.
To fulfill a last request from his dying father, a small-town Florida cop takes on the murder case that nearly tore his family apart in Summers’ crime novel.
It’s 2019, and Officer Jake Long is revisiting a decade-old unsolved murder that he already feels robbed him of time with his dad, Bart, “the closest thing to a homicide detective the department had had” in the small town of Oakley in 2004. Frank Jackson was bludgeoned to death with a wrench and Guy Fowler was convicted when his prints were found on the weapon. The two men hardly knew each other, and a second victim, Diane Ferguson, found in the same room, wasn’t known by either of them. Jake tracks down Cecil Jackson, the murdered man’s son, and Dwayne Fowler of Oakley Feed and Grain, whose dad was arrested. Jake, who’s barely tolerated by Oakley Police Department’s Chief Hill since his father helped him get on the force, has an even worse relationship with fellow officer Al Stanton, whom he recently caught in bed with his wife, Toni. After one of Dwayne’s employees, Odell Byers, is reported missing, Jake finds himself caught in a wave of violence. In Summers’ style of Florida noir, action drives both plot and character. The economical but potent prose is as sharp as Sabal palm leaves, as insistent as Florida heat, and as twisty as a live oak’s branches. The effect of the past and present coming together is captured succinctly: “I drove. Back through town, past people going about their business, unaware that a woman was dead, murdered, past my old high school…past my street where I’d climbed trees and thrown baseballs, past empty fields and clumps of palms and yards with rusted wrecks.” The novel is especially notable in how quiet and precise its most violent moments are, and when it comes to the conventions of the genre, Summers has the recipe right, even when he delivers it with a grain of salt.
A fast-paced collision of small-town violence and delayed justice.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 303
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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