Cottam (The Memory of Trees, 2013, etc.) is adept at creating an atmosphere so disquieting that a sliver of ice lodges in...
Fans await the return of a mythic rock star who vanished in 1975.
Martin Mear was the writer and lead singer for the Ghost Legion, a band equal to the Beatles and the Stones. When Ruthie Gillespie is offered a job writing a 20,000-word essay to accompany a new release of the Legion’s six albums, she’s interested not just for the large fee, but to help get over a ruined love affair and her unsettling encounters with an ancient, sinister cult she knows as the Jericho Society. All the Legion members are dead, but Carter Melville, who’s in charge of the project, arranges for Ruthie to meet the most important people in Martin’s life. Her first meeting with Frederica Daunt, a medium who claims to be in touch with Martin and whose father, Sebastian, did the cover art for Martin’s first album, is hair-raising. Her second interview is with Martin’s girlfriend, famous groupie Paula Tort, who now heads a fashion empire. Terry Maloney, a roadie for the band who was close with Martin, is now Sir Terence, chairman of a merchant bank. Last is Martin’s daughter, April Mear, conceived in the hippie commune where Martin learned to play guitar and came up with the idea for his first blockbuster album, “King Lud.” The charismatic and talented Martin was into black magic, and his last three untitled albums are said to contain mystic clues. Ruthie’s visit to the London apartment of Martin’s uncle Max Askew, who worked for the firm of Martens and Degree, a cover for the Jericho Society, is disturbing, and when the real estate agent is found dead in the haunted apartment, she’s certain it was murder. The friend she’s staying with and a man she’s dating, both of whom have had bad experiences with Jericho, do all they can to help her. Every terrifying experience she has makes her more determined to find the truth. Is Martin Mear still alive?
Cottam (The Memory of Trees, 2013, etc.) is adept at creating an atmosphere so disquieting that a sliver of ice lodges in your brain and remains until the final twist.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8803-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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
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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