Wimberley turns from mysteries (A Rock and a Hard Place, 1999, etc.) to mainstream fiction with fine results: characters to...
A moving, deeply felt story about fathers and sons, sin and redemption.
Florida’s timberlands in 1929—the setting for Tink Buchanan’s mythic struggle to recover land that once belonged to his family—now belongs to the Ogilvies, who live in the house Tink was born in. Every dollar, every nickel and dime Tink earns working his sawmill goes into the recovery fund. The focus is total, the effort unremitting. To ten-year-old Carter, his father is a figure both frightening and magnetic. Carter has seen Tink kill unhesitatingly, seen him administer the kind of eye-for-an-eye justice only possible when a man’s sense of himself borders on the divine. And yet Carter has also seen kindness emanating from his father, acts of unexpected generosity directed not only at him but at others—impoverished and beleaguered blacks, for instance, victims of the rampant racism endemic to that time and place. Carter, now grown and working for the county, loves his father, but he wants no part of his land mania. The distance between them widens even more when Julia becomes a factor—the Ogilvie daughter who cares as little about territoriality as Carter does. He hungers for her, is desperate to marry her, but the obstacles are daunting. Dave Ogilvie and Tink Buchanan are hard men, and there’s no discharge for anyone in their long, grim war. Before it’s resolved violent crimes are committed, good people die tragically, and Carter has to face the bitter implications of his own weakness. And then find the strength to forgive himself.
Wimberley turns from mysteries (A Rock and a Hard Place, 1999, etc.) to mainstream fiction with fine results: characters to empathize with, and the kind of solid, no-nonsense storytelling altogether too rare these days.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2000
ISBN: 1-878448-04-8
Page Count: 350
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. "Superflu" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization—excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God—or the Devil. The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as "the dark man" or "the Walking Dude" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fans will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1978
ISBN: 0307743683
Page Count: 1450
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1978
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
These characters are so beloved that readers may not mind when a few twists veer dangerously close to the absurd.
Three Gardner fan favorites—FBI agent Kimberly Quincy, Sgt. D.D. Warren of the Boston Police, and serial-killer–survivor–turned-vigilante Flora Dane—team up to untangle a series of murders, and lots of small-town secrets, in the Georgia hills.
On a hike in the hills outside the quaint tourist town of Niche, Georgia, a couple finds the partial skeletal remains of Lilah Abenito, who went missing 15 years ago. Lilah was thought to be one of the first victims connected to Jacob Ness, who kidnapped Flora eight years ago when she was a Boston college student and held her captive, mostly in a coffin-sized box, for 472 days. The chance to link the deceased Ness to additional crimes is impossible to pass up, and FBI agent Kimberly Quincy invites D.D., Flora (who is a confidential informant for D.D.), and computer analyst Keith Edgar, Flora's friend/love interest, to be part of her task force. A search through the hills turns up a mass grave full of more skeletal remains. While D.D. is updating the mayor, Howard Counsel, and his wife, Martha, who own the charming Mountain Laurel B&B, she becomes interested in their timid, fearful maid, a young Hispanic woman who's brain damaged and unable to speak following a car accident when she was a child. When Martha suddenly hangs herself (or so it seems), D.D. realizes something very odd is going on at ye olde B&B. Gardner juggles multiple narratives, including that of the Counsels’ nameless maid, with ease. However, the involvement of two civilians in a major federal task force is initially hard to swallow, as are a few supernatural elements Gardner (Look for Me, 2018, etc.) shoehorns in. But Flora’s tentative romance with Keith and her realization that she might finally be thriving, not just surviving, are bright spots, as is Gardner’s evolving and sensitive exploration of trauma and its insidious, lasting effects.
These characters are so beloved that readers may not mind when a few twists veer dangerously close to the absurd.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4500-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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