A frenetic, welcome return to Dave and John’s grotesque but funny grindhouse nightmare.
Dave, John, and Amy are back to kick supernatural ass and chew bubble gum. And they’re all out of bubble gum.
Wong (Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, 2015, etc.)—in reality, Cracked.com executive editor Jason Pargin—burst onto the horror-comedy scene with his phantasmagorical novel John Dies at the End (2009) and has been steadily ratcheting up the madness ever since. You really can’t say he didn’t warn you when his new book’s first words are: “You want to hear a story? Well, buckle the fuck up.” Here Wong revisits his weird Midwestern town (name undisclosed) that’s much like the splatterpunk cousin of Welcome to Night Vale (2015). What starts as a kidnapping case—a little girl is taken by a paranormal entity calling itself “Nymph”—quickly spins out of control to include biker gangs, a secretive government agency, implanted memories, a flying bat creature, and a boss-level leviathan affectionately known as “Millibutt.” “Let me give you a tip: if you’re ever the victim of a terrible crime—like, say, your kid goes missing—and you see the cops consulting with a couple of white trash–looking dipshits in their late twenties, it’s time to worry,” Dave warns us. As crazy as things get, the book remains grounded via an apocalyptic rain storm (giving Nymph a nice Blade Runner–inspired monologue), Dave’s stubborn reluctance to treat his depression, Amy’s sensible charm, and John’s ineffable, if meth-fueled, confidence. But before you think this is evolving into a domestic drama, bear in mind that it also features a porn star made of shape-shifting bug monsters, a DIY gun that shoots hellfire-laced dildos, and a T-shirt cannon packed with the Shroud of Turin. There’s even the return of old favorites like Dr. Albert Marconi and the psychedelic drug Soy Sauce. Oh, and John dies. Again.
Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-04020-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dark, quick-moving, suspenseful story stuffed full of psychological quirk and involution.
The latest thriller from Swanson (All the Beautiful Lies, 2018, etc.) is a twisty, fast-paced tale that depicts picket-fence suburbia's seamy, murderous underside.
Hen and her husband, Lloyd, have just left Boston for the tranquil burbs, and things are looking up for her. After a psychotic break sparked by the unsolved murder of a neighbor, Hen is on the mend, her bipolar disorder under control, her optimism resurgent, her career as an illustrator of dark YA books taking off. At a meet and greet she and her husband hit it off, or think they should, with their next-door neighbors Matthew and Mira, the only other childless couple nearby. But when they cross the driveway for a barbecue, the potential for neighborly coziness curdles. Hen notices a little fencing trophy on a shelf in Matthew's office and recognizes it—or wonders if she recognizes it—as one of the mementos the police reported was stolen from the murder scene in the city. When Hen recalls that the man killed was once a student at the prep school where Matthew teaches history, Hen grows suspicious of Matthew—and starts to stalk him. Is this a break in the case or the beginning of another fit of paranoia? And even if it's the former, who will believe Hen's suspicions given her earlier obsession with the case and the hospitalization it led to? Swanson is at his best in exploring the kinship—or what some see as the kinship—between artist and killer, one of the themes of Swanson's great model and forebear, Patricia Highsmith. Swanson isn't quite up to Highsmith's lofty mark, and he succumbs toward the end to a soap opera–like plot-twist-too-far...but for the most part, this novel delivers.
A dark, quick-moving, suspenseful story stuffed full of psychological quirk and involution.Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283815-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Rated B for badass.
A professional torturer on the run from her employers falls in with sexy twin brothers.
You probably know Meyer as the then-27-year-old Mormon housewife who woke up from a dream about vampires and gave the world Twilight, though in addition to that series she has already published one adult thriller (The Host, 2008). In her latest, she marries the genres of spy versus spy and throbbing romance novel with good results. Meet Juliana, or Alex, or Casey, or Chris—whatever her alias of the moment is, she’s an operative with a medical school background who specializes in chemically controlled torture and interrogation. Somewhere along the line, she learned too much about the secrets of her employers, and she now lives in a state of high-tech paranoia, sleeping in a bathtub wearing a gas mask in a secret location booby-trapped at every possible ingress. When her old boss calls her in for one last mission, she’s not sure she isn’t being double-crossed—but nonetheless proceeds with the kidnapping of Washington, D.C., schoolteacher Daniel Beach, who's purportedly part of a vile plot to release a virus that will wreak global doom. In fact, he is a man whose deep inner goodness is rivaled only by his scorching outer hotness—but our socially awkward virgin heroine won’t realize this until after she’s taken him to her secret lair, stripped him naked, strapped him to a table, and injected him with compounds that produce pure agony for 10 minutes at a time. The biochemical magic between them is even more powerful than the nasty drugs, and by the time his identical twin brother, a swashbuckling black-ops type, shows up to kill her and rescue him, love has bloomed in the torture chamber. As they begin to see through the layers of cross and double cross, the two agents decide to join forces and go into hiding together, with the brother of course, on a ranch in Texas with a pack of trained superdogs. A tale of skulduggery, bodice rippery, and shoot-'em-up action unfolds, complete with help from a luscious mistress of disguise who could have stepped right out of a James Bond novel.
Rated B for badass.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38783-5
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
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