An engaging thriller that successfully explores the implications of a wicked curse.
A nature photographer stumbles upon an ultra-rare black orchid—and a deadly curse—in the first installment of Haase’s (Hotel Constellation, 2018) supernatural-thriller series.
The third wealthiest man in the United Arab Emirates gave American Sebastian Arnett instructions to photograph “the most beautiful, the most delightful, the most interesting” orchids on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo. There, Sebastian meets Australian Johnnie Walker in a bar and reluctantly accepts the stranger’s invitation to accompany him and his friends on weekend vacations inland. Sebastian, a heavy drinker who’s still mourning the death of his wife four years ago, thinks that the outings might provide him with opportunities to find more orchids. On the group’s fifth trip, they stop in a village where a mysterious, white-haired Dyak woman presents Sebastian with an extremely rare black orchid. The silent woman leads the group to an area to find more, where Sebastian receives a dart to his cheek. When he wakes up in a bamboo hut a week later, he’s shocked to find the severed heads of his travel companions, a tattoo of a spiderweb on his face, and, most disturbingly, the ability to kill people with his mind. Haase builds a compelling narrative, interweaved with poems and supernatural elements. At one point, an ethnologist tells Sebastian that “the spider web tattoo...houses a powerful spider spirit that requires occasional sacrifices to keep it content.” Various government operatives seek Sebastian out, which provides opportunities for effective meditations on military systems, as when a U.S. Marine tells Sebastian, “We talk about defending our country, but the reality is the way we do that is to kill the other guy before he kills us.” The story also features an intriguing cast, including Amanda Cox Campion, Sebastian’s love interest; and Chief Kahvah Att-un-poon-a-woon-ah, a Native American medicine man who tries to help the photographer battle the spirit. However, Sebastian’s actions will alienate readers at times; for example, he twice refers to the Native American chief as “William Walks-With-Something-or-Other,” and, at one point, he sleeps with the widow of a man that his demonic spirit killed.
An engaging thriller that successfully explores the implications of a wicked curse.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9994847-3-9
Page Count: 334
Publisher: C. Lawrence Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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