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THE WEED KILLER

Name: THE WEED KILLER
Author: Greg Swiatek
ISBN: 978-1484081181

THE WEED KILLER: ONE MAN'S SOLUTION TO THE HOMELESS PROBLEM

by Greg Swiatek ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2013

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A psychological thriller that takes readers inside the mind of an unusual serial killer.

In Swiatek’s debut, disaffected loner Albert Champion—a man who’s fond of talking to himself and prone to spur-of-the-moment rants—roams the streets of Toronto, vigorously disliking most of what he sees, including the hustling street kids, the lazy municipal employees, the jostling crowds, and most of all, the city’s homeless, who congregate in parks and on heating grates. Champion’s wife left him after nursing him through a throat-cancer scare (a fact that doesn’t seem to bother him), and now his life’s mission is to attack Toronto’s homeless problem in the most direct manner possible: by killing the homeless. “He couldn’t possibly kill every one of them,” he reasons, “but he would have to make enough of an impact to scare the majority off the streets and hopefully the hell out of Toronto altogether.” Alternating chapters introduce readers to the other main characters: overworked, slightly hangdog police Sergeant Don Wright of the Toronto Homicide Division; and idealistic, crusading journalist Mary Monticello. The shooting death of Champion’s first victim alerts them both that a new kind of psychotic, calling himself the Weed Killer, is loose in the city, and as his one-man crime spree continues, both are drawn into the chaos he creates. As the Weed Killer’s rampage garners more and more headlines, public opinion becomes divided. “I don’t pretend to know exactly what is going on with this Weed Killer,” reads one letter that lands on Monticello’s desk, “but I do know that the downtown streets of Toronto have never been more pleasurable to walk down.” Swiatek delivers a high-camp variation on Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon (1981), with winning results. The plot is fairly standard, and even includes a last chance at romantic salvation for the killer, but the author invests it with such energy that readers will be easily swept along. The author also gives Champion a hilariously short-tempered nature that many readers will find entertaining. A well-told serial-killer tale.

Pub Date: July 5, 2013

ISBN: 978-1484081181

Page Count: 248

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).

Pub Date: July 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-345-45071-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.