A bold, no-nonsense story about young women dealing with and overcoming sexual assault.
In Rodger’s thriller, a serial rapist terrorizes Ontario, attacking women and upending lives—until his victims plot revenge.
This narrative is loosely based on aspects of the Scarborough Rapist case, one of the most disturbing in Canadian history, pitting a collection of young women against a perpetrator whose criminal acts threaten to destroy their futures. In 1989, high school student Samantha meets an intoxicating hockey player named Andy (“He drove a motorcycle and lived his life on the edge, a little wild, never wanting to follow the rules”). Things take a horrible turn when Andy rapes her. He disappears, and Sam learns she is pregnant. When Liz meets Blake, she is impressed by his charm and work ethic, so much so that the two are engaged within a year. Liz was planning to go away to college, and her parents convince her to do just that (and marry Blake afterward). But several disturbing comments from him give her pause. Jenny, a high school theater kid, is distressed by the news of the Scarborough Rapist but figures she’s safer since she just got a car. However, she is raped in that car one night, and the aspiring dancer is left with a broken foot. Despondent after the assault, Jenny forsakes her dream of being a physician and decides to become a psychologist instead. Oscillating between youthful optimism and intense fear, these women eventually must come together to share the truth of what happened to them and bring down the responsible party. Rodger’s concise novel wisely avoids exploiting the real-life story by giving the fictional players some distance from it. The web of lies and deceit that is woven here is complex, and the action plays out over many years. There are a lot of characters, and it requires careful reading to follow the plot over the short chapters, which can bounce around in time. All becomes crystal clear toward the end, though, and the novel works well as a testament to the resilience of survivors.
A bold, no-nonsense story about young women dealing with and overcoming sexual assault.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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