A thriller with an intriguing premise that misses opportunities for even greater terror.
A debut horror novel about a small town with an evil sheriff.
Welcome to the Village of Wrong, a place with a most unwelcoming lawman. Sheriff Harrigut, known as “Stargut” to most, is a man with a face that “resembled Jackie Gleason, but it wore no smile and it was carried by no comic.” He’s not the type of figure you want to see pulling you over for a traffic violation, particularly if you had the misfortune of hitting an animal. It turns out that killing a wild creature, or “friend of the wood,” is a serious offense in Wrong, whether it’s intentional or not. As readers learn early on, the penalty for this crime is no less than death—a violent, fiery one behind Richie’s Tavern. It’s a fact that a woman known as “Lovey” knows all too well. Ten years ago, after Lovey’s husband, Bill, hit a deer with his car, he made the unwise decision to notify Stargut, which cost Bill his life. Now, Lovey has a mysterious neighbor in Wrong named Tom—a friendly “preacher of sorts” with an unusual past. They soon team up to tackle their common foe: Stargut himself. Author Jerry paints the sheriff as a frightening authority figure, indeed, who manages to get even more sinister as the novel progresses—although he’s scariest when readers first meet him. The problem with the narrative is that too much information is given away early on. Instead of leaving a sense of mystery about one early murder, for example, the author reveals all the details about it immediately. When it comes time for more deaths as the story goes on, there’s not much that’s new for readers to discover. There are other revelations involving supernatural phenomena, but none are quite as memorable as the earliest ones.
A thriller with an intriguing premise that misses opportunities for even greater terror.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-64069-711-9
Page Count: 211
Publisher: Book Venture Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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