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
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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