by Dean Koontz ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 31, 2012
Entertaining. Koontz's fans will gobble this one up.
Koontz (Odd Hours, 2008, etc.) drops Odd Thomas, likable fry cook and spirit-sensing savant, into Roseland, a castle near Montecito, Calif., a place “one hundred stops beyond Oz on the Tornado Line Express.”
Roseland was built by Constantine Cloyce, newspaper and film mogul. Think Hearst and La Cuesta Encantada. The estate is now owned by hedge-fund rich Noah Wolflaw. Wolflaw has invited Odd to take refuge, but only because the odd one is accompanied by a soul as prescient as he, Annamaria, a young, pregnant woman Odd met, who tells him soon the hours will “test your will and break your heart.” That, Odd knows, for he’s met a spirit on the estate reluctant to move to the Other Side, a murdered woman riding a giant Friesian stallion. From her, Odd learns that her son is in danger at Roseland. Odd explores the estate, encountering obscure security guards, a scarred and combative ruffian named Kenneth Randolph Fitzgerald Mountbatten, and “red-eyed demonic mutant somethings” intent on mayhem. The Koontz cadre will be familiar with the motif, and new readers might be charmed by the Odd, first-person narration, sarcastically humorous, yet gentle and whimsical. Odd explorations reveal the giant mansion and extensive grounds have only two women and one gardener on staff, and yet it remains dustless and immaculately groomed. Annamaria rests in the “guest tower,” offering Delphic pronouncements. Ever-imperiled by the mutant monsters with “large flat heads…blunt fleshy snouts…sharp tusks…and bodies recast in rough primate molds,” Odd does the dirty work, discovering 34 bodies of young women in a subbasement filled with steampunk contraptions designed by Nikola Tesla. Add Aleister Crowley, bondage games, combat shotguns, Beretta pistols, the membrane of time and the Hong Kong wealthy Chiang Pi-Yu, and it’s no wonder that Tesla’s ghost demands Odd pull the Master Switch.
Entertaining. Koontz's fans will gobble this one up.Pub Date: July 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-553-80774-5
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2012
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by Sandie Jones ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 21, 2018
Melodramatic yet wildly entertaining, with a smashing twist.
A woman meets her dream guy, but his mother is something out of a nightmare in Jones’ debut thriller.
Emily Havistock is immediately attracted to the handsome Adam Banks when they meet each other’s eyes across the room at a networking event for her London consulting firm, and even though she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, it doesn’t take long before they’re seeing each other every night. Emily’s last relationship ended in disaster, but she feels a true connection to Adam, although he’s not forthcoming about his past. A couple of months into the relationship, he invites her to meet his mother, Pammie, and assures Emily that Pammie will love her. On the way, when Emily makes a light joke about his mom’s taste in music, Adam snaps at her. One would think that Emily might have considered cutting her losses then and there. But, no, Emily is enamored with Adam, so she vows to make it work. What follows is a hellish sequence of passive aggressive nastiness on the part of Pammie that would bring any woman to her knees, begging for mercy. Emily doesn’t feel like she can confide in Adam since he treats his mother like a saint, but she does have the support of her flatmate, Pippa, and best friend Seb. It doesn’t help that Emily feels undeniable sparks with Adam’s younger, very attractive brother, James. Things with Pammie eventually come to a head in a spectacular way, and Emily begins to realize that Adam may not be as perfect as she thought. Emily, who narrates, is relatable even if readers will root for her to put the fiendish, and fiendishly clever, Pammie in her place and smack Adam for not sticking up for her. Jones ratchets up the tension to the breaking point and throws in a curveball that will make readers’ heads spin.
Melodramatic yet wildly entertaining, with a smashing twist.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-19198-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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by Catherine Coulter ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2019
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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