A mostly solid thriller in which the legal aspects are far more compelling than the family drama.
In Warren’s (Altering Destiny, 2017, etc.) legal thriller, threats and danger stalk an employment attorney who becomes embroiled in a whistleblower case.
Scott Phillip Winslow is a partner in a small Greater Los Angeles law firm that handles employment litigation, and he enjoys a “pretty darn good” life with his wife, Lisa; 5-year-old daughter, Katy; and 7-year-old son, Joey. But a new case threatens to upend Scott’s smooth existence. Kevin Walters was the senior vice president at Consolidated Energy, a mining company. He’s been fired, ostensibly for performance reasons but actually for complaining about a mine’s unsafe conditions. After one worker was killed and three were injured in a mine collapse, the resulting violation records disappeared. Scott and his team investigate, discover crucial evidence, and bring the case to mediation, then to trial. Meanwhile, Jerry Anders, the brother-in-law of Consolidated Energy CEO Michael Constantine, gets released from jail. A two-time loser, Jerry initially vows to stay out of trouble, but he fails at this when he tries to redeem himself in Michael’s eyes by threatening Scott and Kevin, which, in turn, leads to Joey receiving a serious injury. As the trial draws to a close, Scott waits to find out if his son will recover. Author Warren is an experienced employment litigator, and he handles the details of his complicated case well, giving readers a realistic look at the steps of a lengthy legal process; the courtroom scenes, in particular, give readers the satisfaction of tough, skewering questions. Warren also does some good work with characters’ points of view, especially Jerry’s, highlighting his self-serving rationalizations. Similarly, Michael is shown to be more complicated than more standard, black-hat villains. That said, a manhunt sequence goes on way too long, and a scene in which Lisa explains her job to schoolchildren seems unnecessary. Also, the Winslow family members come off as unbearably cutesy in the beginning, and they’re shamelessly employed to tug readers’ heartstrings later on.
A mostly solid thriller in which the legal aspects are far more compelling than the family drama.Pub Date: June 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5246-9716-7
Page Count: 344
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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