A thrilling ride that hits a few speed bumps along the way.
An Arizona dust storm hides an evil secret in this roadside horror novel.
A highway—a stretch of road between Tucson and Phoenix—becomes the epicenter of a treacherous dust storm in the Sonoran Desert. As the wind picks up sand, pebbles, and small rocks, highway patrolman Richard Hickman works to maintain traffic safety. In a dust storm, there’s poor visibility, “causing a lot of accidents,” Richard warns as he encourages travelers to exit the highway or pull over before the tempest arrives. But this storm harbors a nasty secret: Hiding in the fine particles whipping through the air is a malevolent presence that leaves in its wake untold chaos and destruction. When travelers start dying or disappearing in the clouds of dust, the rumors and legends of evil spirits that possess sandstorms begin to hold more credence. Are there devils in the dust? This question hovers over each of the characters trapped on the highway in Dean’s engaging tale. The story follows a vast array of players, with each chapter focusing on one group, describing how the characters got to the highway and providing a little context to their relationships before disaster strikes. There are Mike and Ruth, a couple on a date in his stylish Firebird Formula. There’s also the Lopez household, traveling on the highway for a close-to-home family outing. Though these characters and chapters seem disparate, when the storm comes, the book’s stories suddenly start overlapping in a gripping multicar pileup. Unfortunately, the novel’s developments before the tempest mute some of the tension. Readers always know where the characters are going to end up (on the freeway, possibly battling sandstorm ghouls). The mundane details of the players’ lives (chats between Ruth and her roommate; 10 pages of a family staycation that involves visiting a restaurant and caverns) do little to actually flesh out their personalities. Instead, they serve as digressions for readers to navigate until the excitement kicks in. When the storm hits, the tale is fun and campy—it just takes some detours to get there.
A thrilling ride that hits a few speed bumps along the way.Pub Date: March 28, 2022
ISBN: 979-8439881369
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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