A fun, self-aware monster novel for dinosaur lovers (or haters).
A group of college students blunders into a compound containing genetically engineered dinos in Bruno’s horror novel.
The only reason spoiled pre-law student Azi Midas is going on a pre-graduation camping trip is that he recently slept with Cameron Akagi, the boyfriend of his childhood best friend, Stella Alvarez, and he needs to make sure Cameron doesn’t spill the beans and ruin the friendship. Azi’s recent ex, Ellis Wheeler, is coming too, as is a wide assortment of beer-guzzling jocks, jazz-loving hipsters, outdoor enthusiasts, and conspiracy theorist shut-ins. The 12 college kids are headed for a campground in the remote, mine-tunnel-strewn wilderness of Donkey Ridge, where strange animal attacks have recently been reported. They pitch their tents on the grounds of a large abandoned house (which may not be as abandoned as it seems). The many interpersonal dramas are just coming to a head when a creature that certainly shouldn’t exist appears outside: “The thing still made no sense, even after it was no longer obscured by shadows and fogged glass. It stood so tall that all they could see through the door’s frame were its legs and feet. It had all four long, spindly limbs on the grass outside, each taller than a human-and-a-half.” And there isn’t just one. The author quickly begins dispatching his pointedly diverse characters in a variety of gory ways. (The large cast works in the novel’s favor, as there are plenty of characters to be swallowed up by a pterosaur or chomped by a Carcharodontosaurus.) With its silly premise and broad characterizations, the novel is more Snakes on a Plane than Jurassic Park, with a pinch of 1980s teen-slasher movie thrown in. Bruno revels in the campiness, and the story is sure to please the type of reader inclined to pick up a book with such a pithily self-explanatory title. The comic-like black-and-white illustrations (also by Bruno), including a helpful dramatis personae, complement the novel’s lighthearted, escapist tone.
A fun, self-aware monster novel for dinosaur lovers (or haters).Pub Date: March 19, 2025
ISBN: 9798992717310
Page Count: 309
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
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
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