This slow-burning thriller tracks disparate lives affected by a drug empire in western North Carolina.
Early in Joy’s latest novel, an aging white man named Raymond Mathis drives into the Qualla Boundary and reflects on the history of the Cherokee. The narration moves inside Raymond’s thoughts as he ponders the region: “It was a continuum. The government had never stopped shitting on natives. There was not a single moment in history solid enough to build any sort of trust upon.” Raymond is en route to pick up his son, a lifelong addict who has run afoul of a local drug kingpin. It’s a familiar scene—straight-and-narrow father bails out his tragically flawed son—but the focus is on the complex and harrowing history the two men share in a region with a complex and harrowing history all its own. Joy’s novel encompasses the perspectives of a number of people in this community, with Raymond being one of the book’s two central characters. The other is Denny Rattler, a Cherokee man who’s fallen into a life of heroin addiction and petty crime after a workplace accident. When Raymond’s son relapses and dies, it sets the older man on a path of vengeance. Despite the presence of a few hissable villains, drug kingpins and corrupt cops among them, Joy makes the flaws of Raymond’s approach readily apparent—including a scene displaying the unpleasant collateral damage it results in. It’s Denny who emerges as the book’s most complex character and the one who drives the plot toward its satisfying conclusion.
With memorable characters, deft plotting, and an attention to detail, Joy has written a powerful work of crime fiction.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53688-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | THRILLER
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Past and present collide on a trail of death in the second in the authors’ Nora Kelly series, begun with Old Bones (2019).
When a local sheriff investigates the illegal activity of relic hunters in an abandoned, middle-of-nowhere New Mexico gold-mining town called High Lonesome, he discovers a mummified corpse and a fabulous cross of gold. The discovery is on federal land, so the FBI gets involved. Special Agent Corrie Swanson would have liked a juicier assignment than checking out some old bones in the high desert, but she has a degree in forensic anthropology, and she’s a rookie. She persuades a reluctant Dr. Nora Kelly, senior curator at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, to help puzzle out what happened to the man, as it’s unclear whether a crime has been committed. Forensics determine that the gold is slightly radioactive, and there’s a pack animal skull with a bullet hole. And by the looks of the decades-old corpse, the poor man suffered a horrible death. High Lonesome is on the Jornada del Muerto, or Dead Man’s Journey, the bleak and dismal trail that connected Mexico City and Santa Fe during Spanish colonial rule. The authors are expert plotters and storytellers with smart, engaging characters—Kelly is an experienced pro who thinks Swanson “looked very much the rookie.” Newbie Swanson had barely passed her firearms qualification, and being a lousy shot may bring tragic consequences and a guilty conscience. Luckily, Sheriff Watts has practiced his quick draw since he was a preschooler. Meanwhile, some of those relic hunters are dangerous men searching for an object—not the gold—unknown to Kelly and Swanson. To a descendant of the dead man, “most people would have thought his precious item fit only to line a henhouse with.” Expect nice twists, hairy danger, and good old-fashioned gunplay.
This one’s an attention grabber. Get a copy.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4727-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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