Enlightening, sometimes brilliant, often moving, but always very, very serious. Only very, very serious readers need apply.
Sprung from a forced labor camp, disgraced Beijing Public Security Investigator Shan Tao Yan is now, in his third appearance (Water Touching Stone, 2001, etc.), a somewhat wiser, certainly sadder investigator of mysteries both metaphysical and mundane. On the worldly side is the question of who killed Drotke, the Tibetan warrior-monk who bleeds his last before Shan’s horrified eyes. Was it the monstrous monk-policeman who clearly delivered a vicious blow, or did the estimable Drotke really die as the result of a treacherous earlier blow? And what, Shan asks himself, is behind the so-called disappearance of the young American geologist? Employed by a multinational conglomerate exploring for oil in a remote Tibetan valley, Melissa Larkin—despite protestations to the contrary from the Chinese government—can still be found doing business at the same old rock stand. But as Shan wanders over the desolate, beautiful Tibetan landscape, he has other, more pressing preoccupations. Willy-nilly, he’s become the embodiment of a prophecy. A virtuous Chinese, he’s told, will restore the long-lost (stone) eye stolen from an ancient Buddhist idol. Among the obstacles blocking Shan’s path is the dreaded 54th Combat Brigade of the Chinese Liberation Army, the members of which insist the precious eye was stolen from them. Undaunted, Shan keeps slogging ahead and, ever the seeker of truth, grappling with mysteries stemming from human frailty and the human yearning after God.
Enlightening, sometimes brilliant, often moving, but always very, very serious. Only very, very serious readers need apply.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-27760-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
Very slow off the mark, though once blackmail and murder enter the picture, Scottoline moves things along with her customary...
In Scottoline’s latest family-centered thriller (Accused, 2013, etc.), Jake Buckman lets son Ryan drive the family car on a back road. Very bad idea.
The car hits someone, and she’s dead. Faced with the prospect of his teenager’s life being ruined, Jake tells him to get back in the car, and they drive away. “[D]on’t tell Mom,” Jake warns; he loves his wife, but Pam has the personality you’d expect of a superior court judge (judgmental), and their marriage is still recovering from Jake’s decision to start his own business, which has made him a mostly absentee husband and father. He’s now “one of the top-ten ranked financial planners in southeastern Pennsylvania,” though his planning skills aren’t evident as Jake ineptly tries to cover their tracks. He also has a terrible time keeping his son from confessing once they learn that the dead girl is Ryan’s high school classmate Kathleen Lindstrom. It takes more than 100 pages for the plot to involve anything other than Jake’s nerves, Pam’s suspicions and Ryan’s guilty wails, all of which are believable but not very interesting. Sleazy blackmailer Lewis Deaner livens things up, especially after he turns up murdered. If the police find those cellphone pictures Deaner had of Jake and Ryan at the scene of the crime, Jake will be a suspect. And once Ryan has blurted out the truth to his mother, furious Pam might be just as happy to see Jake in jail. The killer’s identity isn’t much of a surprise, since he’s the only character with any individual traits apart from the Buckmans and the cops, but the final twist comes out of nowhere, 10 pages from the end.
Very slow off the mark, though once blackmail and murder enter the picture, Scottoline moves things along with her customary professionalism, if scant credibility.Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01009-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will...
A pathological liar, a woman in a coma, a childhood diary, an imaginary friend, an evil sister—this is an unreliable-narrator novel with all the options.
"A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too." Was it only a week ago Amber Reynolds thought her job as an assistant radio presenter was a nightmare? Now it's Dec. 26 (or Boxing Day, because we're in England), and she's lying in a hospital bed seemingly in a coma, fully conscious but unable to speak or move. We won't learn what caused her condition until the end of the book, and the journey to that revelation will be complicated by many factors. One: She doesn't remember her accident. Two: As she confesses immediately, "Sometimes I lie." Three: It's a story so complicated that even after the truth is exposed, it will take a while to get it straight in your head. As Amber lies in bed recalling the events of the week that led to her accident, several other narrative threads kick up in parallel. In the present, she's visited in her hospital room by her husband, a novelist whose affections she has come to doubt. Also her sister, with whom she shares a dark secret, and a nasty ex-boyfriend whom she ran into in the street the week before. He works as a night porter at the hospital, giving him unfortunate access to her paralyzed but not insensate body. Interwoven with these sections are portions of a diary, recounting unhappy events that happened 25 years earlier from a 9-year-old child's point of view. Feeney has loaded her maiden effort with possibilities for twists and reveals—possibly more than strictly necessary—and they hit like a hailstorm in the last third of the book. Blackmail, forgery, secret video cameras, rape, poisoning, arson, and failing to put on a seat belt all play a role.
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will enjoy this ambitious debut.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14484-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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