A slow boil that expertly paints a private detective and the war-torn land where he resides.
In Magee’s debut thriller, a British military operative turned private investigator gets caught in a crossfire when a missing person case takes him deep into the Republican heartland of north Belfast.
This novel operates under a set of rules unique to Northern Ireland: never trust outsiders, keep to yourself, and avoid even the appearance of cooperation with police or other government officials. So when Roisin Byrne hires Jack Brennan to locate her missing husband, the private eye knows he’ll have his work cut out for him. The fact that Tony Byrne—a Catholic who chose to have Protestant friends—could vanish without a trace is disturbing, and even three years after his disappearance, Tony’s friends and neighbors (including the parish priest) remain reluctant to get involved in the investigation. They believe the man is likely dead, the victim of sectarian sparring. It’s a scenario that Brennan finds convincing, but Roisin begs him to continue his search, pleading: “I want him back—even his bones—if that’s all there is.” Despite his misgivings, Brennan continues his investigation. Could the Irish Republican Army be involved? A gang of racketeers? Or is Tony’s disappearance related to a case of mistaken identity? Magee’s novel could have used a bit more action in the first half. However, it succeeds in establishing the taciturn Brennan as a bona fide player in the world of mystery fiction. The duty-bound, resolute PI proves himself as the type of conflicted, rules-be-damned character that’s proven popular time and again with crime-novel fans. Although deeply loyal, Brennan, who also served in the American Special Forces, is bedeviled by a quick temper and trust issues. The author weaves just enough clues about the investigator’s past into the finely developed plot to make sure his lead character’s back story complements, but doesn’t eclipse, the hunt for the missing Tony. Minor copy editing errors are an annoyance, however (“Smartly dressed in mid-grey suits they looked for all the world like a couple of Mormon’s out on a recruiting patrol”). Overall, though, Magee crafts a riveting tale that will keep readers guessing until the end.
A slow boil that expertly paints a private detective and the war-torn land where he resides.Pub Date: March 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4954-2571-4
Page Count: 438
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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