Magee’s got the writing chops, and he knows how to weave a good story, but this premiere effort could have benefited from a...
Magee, a multimedia professional (photojournalist, screenwriter, producer), pens a debut novel that combines literary and suspense writing in a mostly successful story concerning marriage, doubt and a high-profile kidnapping.
When nine-year-old Sarah, the only child of Swedish-raised Lena, a physician, and her husband, David, climbs on board the van that is supposed to take her and three other children to summer camp, Lena already has misgivings: She’s not too sure that Sarah will like camp, even though her best friend, Linda, is also going. But Lena and David need some time to repair their marriage, so she reluctantly helps Sarah pack and sends her off when the camp van and driver show up to collect her. Problem is, once Sarah leaves, a second van appears, also ready to collect Sarah. Lena discovers that not only have her daughter and Linda apparently been kidnapped, but so have two boys, the son of a local construction contractor and the child of a minister married to a banking official. Together, the four kids travel deep into the wilderness with a man they know only as Mr. Everett, who blindfolds the quartet and marches them to a remote and primitive cabin in the woods. There, a chance meeting with a hiker changes the equation and, suddenly, what looked like a straightforward kidnapping forces the children to make a decision that could cost them their lives. Magee’s characters are well drawn, but his law-enforcement officers often behave implausibly and obvious clues are steadfastly ignored both by cops and other characters. These bothersome lapses distract readers who would prefer to stay caught up in the action—and there is enough action to keep the plot moving forward—but who must reluctantly stop and wonder why no one connected the dots.
Magee’s got the writing chops, and he knows how to weave a good story, but this premiere effort could have benefited from a little less improvisation and a little more research into police procedure.Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-5398-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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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