Morrell (Extreme Denial, 1996, etc.) slams two wildly unrelated stories together to produce this misshapen, empty, though greased-lightning thriller. Story #1. Prizewinning photographer Mitch Coltrane, back home from Bosnia, is being threatened and stalked by somebody who calls himself “the judge”’somebody who’s obviously Dragan Ilkovic, the Serb commander whose heinous war crimes Mitch managed to document, at hair-raising peril, just before he left. Mitch wants to put the ugliness of his life’s work behind him by shooting an updated series of photos of the opulent Hollywood homes immortalized in the work of legendary photographer Randolph Packard back in the 1930s. But Packard dies shortly after bringing Coltrane on board, and Ilkovic—not just a war criminal, but a sadistic torturer and an electronics freak—keeps getting closer, killing Coltrane’s neighbor and friend, an LAPD cop on the case, and Coltrane’s grandparents in Connecticut, in a race toward a showdown—halfway through the novel—that suddenly clears the ground for Story #2. This one is a tender (though equally corpse-strewn) tale of romantic intrigue that starts when Coltrane, who’s purchased an old home Packard photographed and bought for himself, becomes besotted with a trove of photos of Rebecca Chance, a stunning Hollywood hopeful from the ’40s, then (following the trail to another of Packard’s houses) meets Natasha Adler, who looks eerily like the reincarnation of Rebecca Chance. Coltrane’s loyal friend, editor, and sometime lover Jennifer Lane warns him that Tash is trouble, but does the big lug listen? Desperate to forget Ilkovic’s carnage, as well as all those ugly war photos, he keeps missing the chasm that even half-wit readers, who—ve had the benefit of 200 pages to think it over, will see yawning beneath his feet. The first story is midgrade, unsurprising stalker stuff; the second, which ends with Coltrane becoming a stalker himself, is risible. Think Vertigo rewritten for Steven Seagal. (Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection)
Pub Date: May 12, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-51963-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
Tudor came out swinging with Chalk Man (2018), but this one puts her firmly on the map. Not to be missed.
When Joe Thorne takes a teaching job in the small English village of his youth, he soon realizes the darkness he's tried to forget certainly hasn’t forgotten him.
Returning to the tiny mining village of Arnhill wasn’t English teacher Joe Thorne’s first choice, and teaching at Arnhill Academy, which he attended as a boy, is the furthest thing from a dream job. But his choices are limited. A gambling problem has put him in debt to a man who will break his kneecaps, or worse, if he doesn’t get his money. Well, actually, he has a frightening woman named Gloria on hand to do that for him, and she’s got her eye on Joe. But Joe has a plan. He moves into a cottage where an Arnhill teacher recently killed her young son and then herself, writing “NOT MY SON” in blood on the wall. But beggars can’t be choosers, and Joe tries to settle in at Arnhill, where it’s soon obvious that his old foes never left, and they don’t want him in their village. Stephen Hurst, a bully Joe ran with as a kid, has a hold on the town, and his son Jeremy, an Arnhill student, is a chip off the old block. Unfortunately, Stephen shares a secret with Joe that involves Joe’s beloved sister, Annie, who disappeared when she was 8 and was very different when she returned. The events leading up to her death soon after were very strange indeed, and everything leads back to a mine shaft that is the source of ghost stories and rumors that have persisted for hundreds of years. The past and present are about to collide in chilling fashion. With Joe, Tudor avoids going the way of the unreliable narrator: He doesn’t lie to readers, even if he lies to others, and he has a snarky sense of humor that adds levity. Tudor maintains a tone of creeping dread throughout the book, of something lingering always in the background, coyly hiding its face while whispering promises of very bad things to come. In the last quarter, however, she goes for broke with outright horror, giving readers an effective jolt of adrenaline that will carry them all the way to the terrifying conclusion. Readers won’t know what hit them.
Tudor came out swinging with Chalk Man (2018), but this one puts her firmly on the map. Not to be missed.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6101-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
Fluke lavishes so much attention on the mechanics of location shooting that there’s scant time for the murder, much less its...
Even the murder of its cranky director can’t stop the filming of Crisis in Cherrywood or halt the snooping of Lake Eden’s premier baker.
Just when Hannah Swenson’s decided to accept neither of the marriage proposals tendered at the end of Peach Cobbler Murder (2005)—turning down both sweet-tempered dentist Norman Rhoades and hot-blooded lawman Mike Kingston—another suitor turns up. Her old college classmate Ross Barton, now a Hollywood producer who thinks Lake Eden is just the spot to shoot his new movie, recruits Hannah’s mom Delores as set designer, her younger sister Michelle as production assistant and her middle sister Andrea as an extra. He even casts Andrea’s five-year-old, Tracey, to play heroine Lynne Larchmont as a child and presses Hannah’s cat Moishe into service as her childhood pet. For Hannah he reserves the role of constant companion, escorting her to dinner, inviting her to view the dailies and letting her watch the filming—which gives her a front-row seat as Dean Lawrence, instructing leading man Anson Burke on how to use a prop pistol, shoots himself fatally instead. Since Mike has made it clear to Hannah that she must leave investigating to the professionals, she can’t investigate, she can only snoop—much to the delight of Andrea, Norman and Lake Edenites everywhere.
Fluke lavishes so much attention on the mechanics of location shooting that there’s scant time for the murder, much less its solution.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7582-0294-6
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
