A heroic federal judge will stop at nothing to save the life of his son.
Ricci’s first novel stars U.S. District Judge Edward Lamport, a stern and upright magistrate with a “demonstrated ability to separate his personal feelings from his professional duty,” a trait that he doesn’t necessarily like. He’s overseen several controversial cases in his California jurisdiction, and he’s no stranger to facing threats of violence arising from his rulings. As the tale opens, one such threat has the U.S. marshals worried enough to issue Lamport body armor and prep him in firearms. So the judge is already on high alert when he gets a panicked text message from Alana Walsh, his first love, whom he knew and left before he married his wife, Jacqui. Alana calls him from Mexico to tell him their son, Carlos, is in trouble: while working for a large Mexican bank, he’d uncovered evidence hinting that the institution was involved in laundering money for drug cartels. Now he believes his life is in danger, and he and his mother are imploring Lamport to help Carlos immigrate to the United States. Not only do cartel enforcers want him dead, but immigration itself is an explosive topic in Lamport’s California as well. A controversial new proposition is seen by some as “backhanded oppression” of the state’s large population of illegal immigrants. The judge naturally attempts to call in favors from political friends, but when his efforts gain curiously little traction, it begins to look like the plot Carlos uncovered goes even deeper than it initially seemed. Ricci handles the admittedly front-loaded momentum of his narrative with the skill of a practiced professional; he has the patience and sound ear to create his characters—particularly Lamport—as much from dialogue and quick, telegraphic thoughts as from overt scene-setting. The author’s overlay of Christian elements onto the enormously readable story is subtly and believably done. (When Alana first contacts Lamport, she tells him that Carlos said “he had a plan and he trusted God to protect him.”) Ricci delivers that rare bird, an action novel that should appeal equally to Christian and non-Christian readers. This is an extremely promising and muscular debut.
A fast-paced and thought-provoking legal thriller built around the hot-button issue of immigration.Pub Date: May 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3477-1
Page Count: 444
Publisher: Waterfall Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | RELIGIOUS FICTION | THRILLER | POLITICAL, MILITARY & TERRORISM
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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
12
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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. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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