A gripping detective story with biblical undertones.
In Wallace’s (Trojan, 2016) supernatural thriller, a South Carolina cop tracks a serial killer with ties to the occult and starts having visions of a demon.
The last few weeks in Georgetown County have been traumatic, as someone’s been abducting and killing 12-year-old boys there over the last few weeks, carving the Star of David into their bodies. Detective Art Somers worries about his son, Benjamin, who’s the same age as the victims, and his anxiety only increases when the murderer starts using Art’s town, Murrells Inlet, as a dumpsite for corpses. But right around the time that Art locks onto a viable suspect, the FBI takes over the case, so he and his fellow detective (and new fiancee) Angela Hunter move on to work a security detail for tech billionaire Cory D’Meadow. When they ensnare a would-be assassin targeting D’Meadow, however, Art finds evidence of cult activity in town, which may also be connected to the child murders. He also starts to experience intense visions involving a demonic creature; in one vision, it’s rising out of the earth and in another, it’s assaulting a woman. When Art sees a bright light and hears a voice telling him that he’s been “chosen for a special mission,” he’s certain that he’s either losing his mind or caught up in something truly otherworldly. Despite the supernatural touches at play here, Wallace’s novel is refreshingly subtle. The story aptly blends the horror and crime genres, as Art’s bizarre episodes are just as essential to the plot as the real-world evidence. Art’s personal dilemma is an engaging one: he’s been an atheist ever since the murder of his parents and sister long ago, and he struggles with believing that God has handpicked him. Nevertheless, Wallace handles it all with panache: his detective protagonist, determined to find a solution, compiles every clue, whether they’re from murder scenes, Bible passages, or his own visions. His investigation becomes even more personal when someone he loves is in peril.
A gripping detective story with biblical undertones.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9972257-2-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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