A suspense masterpiece that leaves its competitors buried in dust.
Written with Krazy-Glu, Koontz's 27th book is his most gripping chiller yet.
Simple as a snaplock, the story relentlessly lives up to its title—even the flashbacks rise above filler as they allow slight easings before the next plot lurch. Demanding much of itself, Koontz's style bleaches out genre cliches and hackneyed dialogue while also showing a genius for detail and a daunting mastery of motors, tools, hinges, and housewares arcana. The story: Chyna Sheperd, a psychology grad in her late 20s, visits her close friend Laura Templeton's family in Napa Valley on the very night that the country house is invaded by "homicidal adventurer" and sensation freak Edgler (pronounced Edge-ler) Foreman Vess. Vess murders Laura's parents, her brother and sister-in-law, then makes off with Laura in his big motor home. Unbeknownst to Vess, Chyna, in hiding, witnesses much of this, and, armed only with a butcher knife, sneaks into the trailer hoping to save Laura. But Laura is dead, as is a young hitchhiker hung by manacles in a closet with his eyes sewn shut and lips closed with two buttons. Worse, Chyna is herself a semiprisoner, escaping unseen only when Vess stops at a gas station, kills the attendants, and takes Polaroids of their corpses. Vess, Chyna now knows, has 16-yard-old Ariel imprisoned in his home. Thus, still alone, she steals a Honda and trails Vess, who drives up into Oregon where he has a spotlessly clean two-story log cabin in a deep woods, some high-tech computer equipment—and Ariel. Once Chyna slips inside, looking for Ariel, she finds herself looped in ribbons of Koontz's Supertacky Flypaper.
A suspense masterpiece that leaves its competitors buried in dust. (First printing of 600,000; Literary Guild main selection)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42525-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Too much psychobabble, technobabble, and envirobabble, yet the appeal of the young sleuths (smart, funny, tough) almost...
A cunning serial killer plays devilish mind games with his would-be captors—and what else is new?
Not much. Well, he does have this penchant for pluralizing. That is, he grabs his young women in pairs. Why pairs? He uses corpse one for the planting of clues sufficient to allow law enforcement—if law enforcement is astute enough—to find corpse two alive. “Eco-Killer,” he’s been tabbed because in addition to his passion for gamesmanship, he seems to have an ongoing love-hate relationship with the environment. From Georgia, scene of the first killings, we shift to Virginia, where Special Agent Mac McCormack of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been on the case from the outset. He’s been directed to Virginia by a barrage of enigmatic phone calls from someone who claims to know how the serial killer’s sly and twisted mind works. In Quantico, a training ground for FBI agents as well as for US Marines, Mac meets fledgling feebie Kimberly Quincy, daughter of former agent Pierce Quincy, famous throughout the service for his legendary exploits as a profiler. When the Eco-Killer strikes again, Quincy and his p.i. partner Lorraine Conner, mainstays of the series, (The Next Accident, 2001, etc.), are called in to consult, but the case really belongs to the captivating Kimberly and hunkish Mac (with their bods for sex and brains for high-powered detecting). Convinced there’s a chance to save a life if they can manage to solve the killer’s puzzle in time, the two desperately seek clues from botanists, biologists, entomologists, and a variety of other analysts. Something from here, something from there, and at last they can make the guess that plunges them deep into Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, where the game plays out to a fiery end.
Too much psychobabble, technobabble, and envirobabble, yet the appeal of the young sleuths (smart, funny, tough) almost saves the day.Pub Date: July 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-553-80252-6
Page Count: 325
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
A treasure trove of Victoriana, especially for foodies. More history than mystery but a truly delightful read.
A split-second decision is life-changing in this stand-alone Victorian-era mystery from Bowen (Love and Death Among the Cheetahs, 2019, etc.).
Isabella Waverly’s father is an aristocrat estranged from his family who’s fallen so far in the world that he sent his oldest daughter out to work as a servant at 15. Her only joy is learning to cook. When a girl is run over by an omnibus before her eyes, Bella automatically picks up an envelope the dead girl had been clutching. The envelope contains an invitation to apply for an under-cook position at Buckingham Palace that very day. Introducing herself as Helen Barton, Bella snags the job. She hides her new position from Louisa, the younger sister who’s marrying the son of a well-off family. She struggles to immerse herself in the persona of a girl from Yorkshire, explaining her upper-class accent by saying her father was a gentleman. The only fly in the ointment is the appearance of Helen’s brother, who blackmails her into finding a job for him, too. Bella’s passion for cooking and her work ethic soon endear her to the mostly male staff. Queen Victoria, who has an enormous appetite for rich foods, so enjoys Bella’s scones that she personally asks her to make them every day. When her majesty travels to Nice, Bella goes along and gets to put her knowledge of French to use. She develops a semiromantic friendship with the head chef at the hotel, which was built especially for the queen. Indeed, her life seems idyllic until Count Wilhelm, the betrothed of Princess Sophie, dies, ostensibly from a poisoned mushroom Bella bought in a local market. Now she must juggle cooking and a suddenly active love life as she searches for a way to end her predicament.
A treasure trove of Victoriana, especially for foodies. More history than mystery but a truly delightful read.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0825-9
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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