A slightly uneven but engaging read that should satisfy fans of mysteries and medical dramas.
In this debut mystery/thriller, a doctor loses his short-term memory and learns over and over again that his wife has been murdered.
Dr. Chris Barnes, a talented but arrogant Boston cardiac surgeon, is in the midst of marital strife when he gets a bad case of food poisoning—one so acute that he wakes up in the hospital without the ability to form new memories. His brain has been affected by a neurotoxin, which means that each day he must relearn everything that’s happened since he fell into a coma, including the fact that, while he was unconscious, his wife was murdered. As a result, Barnes must not only rebuild his old life, but also navigate his current one as he investigates his wife’s murder. Apseloff takes a few chapters to hit his stride, but he sets up the mystery quite well; each suspect has believable motivations, and several possible conspiracies simmer on the back burner. Unfortunately, at more than 400 pages, the novel is a bit overlong; at times, it veers away from the plot into needless repetition and embellishment; what should be a taut, fast-paced thriller lingers on too many details, getting bogged down in discussions of medical procedures and descriptions of Boston’s restaurants and architecture. It is also unclear (until the epilogue) exactly when the novel takes place, and as a result, it occasionally feels somewhat dated—particularly in some characters’ approaches to issues of race and sexual orientation. Overall, however, the novel has more successes than missteps. Apseloff has a flair for the mystery genre, and when the book tightens its focus, the plot moves along nicely; Barnes’ frustration and newfound feelings of alienation are palpable, and his relationship with his wife is realistically nuanced. The story picks up steam as it goes, and although it wraps up the mystery a little too quickly, it ends on a strong note, staying true to its protagonist’s earlier struggles.
A slightly uneven but engaging read that should satisfy fans of mysteries and medical dramas.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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