It could be argued that Petey’s monstrosity is overdone, but that would be carping. Altogether: good storytelling, neatly...
Cain and Abel rematched—in a surprising and savvy departure for spymeister Morrell (Burnt Sienna, 2000, etc.).
“When I was a boy my kid brother disappeared.” When anxious suspense readers come upon an opening sentence that evocative, they breathe more easily, knowing they’re in good hands. Brad Denning, 13, tired of being followed by worshipful Petey, 9, chases Petey home from a pick-up baseball game. But he never gets home. Twenty-five years later, Brad, a successful architect, crossing a street in Denver, hears his name called by a scruffy, itinerant construction worker who proclaims himself his brother. At first, Brad is skeptical, especially since a recent appearance on a Sunday morning TV show has had bogus brothers coming out of the woodwork. But this is different. This man knows things, personal things about Brad and the family, things he couldn’t have learned from the media. Convinced, Brad takes Petey home, where Kate and Jason, Brad’s wife and son, give him a warm welcome. Brad is overjoyed. He’s found long-lost Petey and sees an opportunity to do something constructive about a quarter-century’s worth of accumulated guilt—a fantasy short-lived and brutally ended. On a camping trip, Petey pushes Brad off a ridge into a 200-foot-deep chasm and leaves him for dead. Brad manages to survive, then almost wishes he hadn’t when he discovers that Petey has kidnapped Kate and Jason. Brad understands that he’s being punished, that what he’s living through is his brother’s long and carefully calculated act of vengeance. A year passes. The FBI and assorted police forces have given up, but Brad can’t. Painstakingly, he trains himself to think like Petey, and his hunt eventually bears fruit: Cain and Able one on one yet again.
It could be argued that Petey’s monstrosity is overdone, but that would be carping. Altogether: good storytelling, neatly plotted and admirably paced, Morrell’s best in years.Pub Date: May 8, 2002
ISBN: 0-446-52940-0
Page Count: 310
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
It’s difficult to drum up sympathy for this missing child, swaddled as she is in such a dull and harmless plot.
A questionable decision leaves a couple in a situation no parent wants to face: it’s the middle of the night and their baby is gone.
Anne and Marco Conti seem like the perfect upstate New York family. He runs a successful software development company while she stays home with 6-month-old Cora; maybe soon she’ll go back to work at the art gallery she loved. Yet looks are deceiving: his company is floundering, and she’s struggling with postpartum depression. A nice night out at a neighbor’s birthday party might be just the thing everyone needs. But when the babysitter cancels, Anne and Marco decide to leave Cora alone, taking the baby monitor with them and checking on her every half hour. This ends predictably badly. When they return, drunk, after 1:00 a.m., Cora is gone. What ensues is a paint-by-numbers police investigation, led by the personality-free Detective Rasbach, who seems to cycle through potential theories as to Cora’s whereabouts the same way Lapena must have in her early plotting stages, except it all ended up on the page. When it’s clear, or at least partially clear, what happened to the child, any remaining tension hisses out like a pricked balloon. Anne’s wealthy mother and stepfather seem a too-obvious plot device, and they are, while her issues with the very real problem of postpartum depression are merely glossed over or trotted out during faux-fiery monologues.
It’s difficult to drum up sympathy for this missing child, swaddled as she is in such a dull and harmless plot.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2108-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cancel all your plans and call in sick; once you start reading, you’ll be caught in your own escape room—the only key to...
Four people answer an ominous summons from human resources only to be deliberately trapped in an elevator in Goldin’s debut thriller.
In the highflying world of finance, Vincent, Sam, Jules, and Sylvie used to be superstars, but recently they’ve failed to close too many lucrative deals, and they know their jobs are hanging by a thread. Called to a Friday evening meeting at an office building under construction, they become trapped in the steel elevator, which has been rigged to emulate an escape room. If they solve the clues, perhaps they can find their way out. At first, they assume it’s just the worst team-building exercise ever—but the clues point them toward a much darker possibility. How much do they know about the deaths of two young associates? Will they be able to solve the mystery and escape—or is the whole system rigged against them? There’s a Spanish proverb used by Tana French in The Likeness: “ 'Take what you want and pay for it,’ says God.” The main characters in Goldin’s novel should probably have paid more attention to the second half of that saying. Powerful, attractive, and unbelievably wealthy, they truly believe that their security and success are worth protecting at any cost. Despite the unsavory characters—or perhaps even because of them—this novel is pure entertainment. Offering a modern take on the classic locked-room mystery, Goldin strings the reader along by alternating chapters set in the past and in the present and by peppering the present chapters with riddles and word games. This is a commentary on the cutthroat, hypocritical world of finance, where one must sacrifice everything to stay on top. It provides us with antagonists we love to hate as well as a sympathetic heroine who pays the ultimate price for survival: her own sense of goodness and fair play.
Cancel all your plans and call in sick; once you start reading, you’ll be caught in your own escape room—the only key to freedom is turning the last page!Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-21965-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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