An audacious novel with a hero that braves both mythical creatures and a disability.
To save his family, a former New York state cop follows serial killers into a strange realm of gods and dragons in Vick’s (Devils, 2017, etc.) fantasy tale.
It’s been seven years since Hank Jensen was a state trooper. He’s been on disability for rheumatoid arthritis, which causes him near-constant pain; it seems to have started after a woman named Liz Tutor, a prime suspect in a series of killings, put a curse on him. Hank never managed to bring her to justice, nor was he able to arrest Chris Hatton, who all but admitted that he and Liz were the cannibalistic murderers known as the Bristol Butchers. When Hank’s wife, Jane, and 12-year-old son, Sig, don’t return from trick-or-treating on Halloween, he gets a phone call from Bobbie Timmens, his former neighbor, telling him to go to the cave that once housed the Butchers’ victims. There, he finds a colorful, oval mirror—a portal that takes Hank to a land in the midst of a blizzard. A man named Meuhlnir provides him with both refuge and information, and it turns out that there may be something to Liz’s and Chris’ strange claims of being gods. Hank teams up with powerful people called the Isir and, on the path to find his family, faces everything from elves to reanimated corpses. Vick’s Norse mythology–laden narrative is rife with figures that readers will recognize. Still, Hank’s condition makes him the most distinctive character; when he first heads out to rescue his family, he stocks up not only on ammunition, but also on pain meds. There’s a good deal of back story, including Hank’s initial investigation of Liz and Chris and how the Isir achieved power. The inevitable confrontations are enhanced by Vick’s energetic prose: “With a cacophony of savage, ear-splitting screams, the fire demons fell on the party of Isir.” The expansiveness of the story’s world(s), unfortunately, offsets the urgency of finding Jane and Sig. Nevertheless, the story is thoroughly resolved, and there’s a hint of how the series might continue.
An audacious novel with a hero that braves both mythical creatures and a disability.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 721
Publisher: Ratatoskr Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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