Harrowing horror with a side of searing social commentary.
Someone—or something—is hunting Black girls in this Appalachia-set debut.
In 2017, Liz Rocher—32, Black, and newly single—reluctantly revisits her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, for the wedding of her White best friend, Melissa Parker. Though Melissa's racist family tolerates Liz, they oppose Melissa marrying Garrett Washington, who is Black, though the couple has a 9-year-old daughter, Caroline. After the ceremony, Liz takes a break from watching Caroline and her cousins play outside to get a drink and flirt with the bartender. When she returns, Caroline is gone. Liz combs the surrounding woods but finds only a bloody scrap of Caroline's dress. The reception becomes a search party, which also turns up nothing. Some assume Caroline wandered off and got lost, but Liz can't help but remember Keisha Woodson—a Black classmate who vanished 15 years ago and was then found with her heart missing and her guts strewn about. Authorities claimed Keisha died from "a very bad fall compounded by animal activity," but according to Keisha's mother, each June for the past three decades a Black girl has disappeared, with little attention paid by the media or police. Every recovered corpse is absent a heart. Determined to stop the cycle, Liz launches her own investigation, unwittingly making herself a target. Chapters narrated by an initially unidentified being memorialize previous victims. Paranoia mounts and suspects multiply as Liz realizes the depth and breadth of Johnstown’s bigotry. The tale’s crime and supernatural elements don’t quite mesh, but plentiful twists, keenly rendered characters, and atmospheric prose keep the pages turning.
Harrowing horror with a side of searing social commentary.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-49930-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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