Not enough unique here to leave a mark on a horror fan’s imagination.
Kirch offers an unusual twist on the overdone vampire mythos in this simplistic supernatural thriller.
For the creature at the center of his paranormal tale, Kirch wisely uses a variation on vampires, the Filipino aswang. Anton Gerrold was thought dead from a stake in the heart after a series of gruesome murders in Phoenix in 1991. But—oops—the authorities missed his tiny heart. So now Gerrold has returned to terrorize women in Los Angeles more than 20 years later. And he makes a horrific monster: “There was a scent to pregnant women that the vampire found irresistible….Nothing was more fantastic than unborn flesh being ripped between his teeth.” Capt. Darren Matheson, a veteran homicide detective, gets sucked into a world he doesn’t understand while investigating these bizarre attacks. The FBI agent who thought Gerrold had been destroyed sends Matheson to retrieve his former helper, disgraced reporter Sebastian Hemlock, from Kansas City, where he was resigned to working for a tabloid newspaper. Hemlock grabs this chance to get the job done right while redeeming his reputation and maybe rekindling his love with Karon Ramiko. “The FBI made him destroy my life as a means of controlling me and what I know: that there are indeed monsters in this world,” Hemlock says. While Kirch’s original concept is intriguing and he provides a diverting governmental-coverup subplot, this short narrative falls together far too neatly. Too quickly, Matheson, Hemlock and his ex-girlfriend Lt. Karon Ramiko have located Gerrold’s hideout and marched off on their mission to slay the beast, without enough time to build suspense. There’s little space dedicated to fleshing out these cardboard characters, either. Instead, it’s the steady cop and the bickering couple, who are still in love, that team up to save the day. The intriguing concept is wasted on a predictable narrative, adding little that’s new to the genre.
Not enough unique here to leave a mark on a horror fan’s imagination.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1771151955
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Double Dragon Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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