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ESKER

Name: ESKER
Author: D.L. Tracey
ISBN: 978-1-5246-5464-1

by D.L. Tracey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2016

Despite the hints of a promising Hitchcock-ian thriller, this murder tale fails to live up to its potential.

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Mysterious creatures and gruesome killings terrorize a New England town in this horror novel.

In 1964, a young boy is disemboweled in a storm drain under the Esker in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Rescuers fail to recover the boy’s body when it’s dragged off by a predator covered in seaweed with yellow eyes (“Stopping for a moment, the creature started to growl; a slow, deep growl that made the storm drain feel even colder than its concrete walls”). The image sticks with rookie firefighter Paul Tobin and seasoned Capt. Butch Hunt. Eleven years later, they experience an eerie sense of déjà vu when another boy goes missing. This time, the incident sets off a string of murders, each more horrific than the last. A park ranger is violently beaten and dragged from her vehicle. A young couple are ambushed and slaughtered, with nothing left but severed feet to attest to their presence. As the list of the missing and the dead grows, the firemen and Park Ranger Ryan Gallagher lead a dangerous search for the creature (or creatures) that hunts in the storm drains under the earth. Tracey (Tales from the Tables, 2014, etc.) has the makings of an excellent horror story. The initial murders are shocking, and the presence of an unknown entity lurking under a popular park is wonderfully disturbing. The first disappearance is wrought with tension as rescuers struggle to find a missing boy in the face of a howling storm and rising tides, with the young victim’s screams of pain echoing in their ears. But the book loses steam as the narrative progresses. What ensues is a litany of homicides that lacks emotional impact once the initial shock value of death wears off. There is little character development, resulting in a dearth of emotional connection to the victims or the rescue team. As the body count rises, the absence of a deeper plot becomes noticeable. Why the sudden killings? Is there something in the history of the town? There must be more to the story than a string of violent episodes. An abrupt ending and unexpected reveal leave more questions than answers, perhaps a nod toward an impending sequel or two.

Despite the hints of a promising Hitchcock-ian thriller, this murder tale fails to live up to its potential.

Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5464-1

Page Count: 150

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Review Posted Online: May 17, 2017

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.