Another winner from a top-tier thriller writer.
A San Francisco silver spoon heir trying to do good becomes entangled in a serial murder case in Hurwitz’s (The Survivor, 2012, etc.) latest thriller.
Daniel Brasher, last heir to a family fortune that can be traced back to the Union Pacific’s golden spike, left the private investment business to become a counselor for violent offenders. The only child of widowed Evelyn Brasher, a community mover and shaker more powerful and feared than appreciated and respected, Brasher strayed further by marrying Cristina, a Hispanic community organizer. Money, an Audi, a gentrified three-story in Pacific Heights mean the couple lives well while doing good, the only pothole on the road to happily-ever-after being Cristina’s cancer. Then Brasher discovers an anonymous murder threat in his work mailbox. The threat, however, is directed at another person. Soon, other murder threats, and bodies, accumulate. Every corpse is left with "knife slits leaking blood below either eye." The Tearmaker’s notes always demand that victims "admit what you’ve done." Hurwitz is brilliant with characterization. Evelyn and Cristina are spark-striking opposites. Leo Rizk, shadowy, silent hired bodyguard, has a dark history revealed in strobe flashes. Theresa Dooley, hard-charging young African-American inspector, leads the investigation. And Martin, A-Dre, Big Mac, Martin, Lil and Xochitl, the sextet that makes up Brasher’s counsel group of violent offenders, are broken and brave but worthy suspects all. Hurwitz’s writing is more lyrical than noir—one chapter delineates San Francisco perfectly—with occasional literary flashes—"watched the sunbeams' relentless creep along the floorboards, ushering in the threats of a new day)." Hurwitz is no slouch at plotting either, dragging Brasher from one murder scene to another, either consulting with Dooley or giving in to his own curiosity—or guilt. Every suspect seems legitimate, but then the narrative makes a hard U-turn and aims The Tearmaker at Brasher and his wife only to stumble beyond a satisfying conclusion and tack on the trite tying up of one minor narrative thread.
Another winner from a top-tier thriller writer.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-312-62552-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
Melodramatic and filled with a lot of pointless meanderings, but Jackson’s many fans will still enjoy it.
New York Times’ bestselling author Jackson puts her touch on this dark thriller and tale of forbidden romance.
Ava Church Garrison has it all. She’s beautiful, a near-genius and wealthy. Married to a handsome attorney and living in her family’s ancestral home on a small island off the coast of Washington, her future couldn’t be brighter, except for one small problem. It appears to everyone, including Ava, that she’s lost her mind. It all started when she lost her child. Two-year-old Noah wandered out of the house, and authorities believe he fell into the icy water and drowned. But Ava won’t accept this. She keeps searching for Noah, her searches prompted by sounds and visions she can’t control. No matter what she does, Ava keeps hearing Noah call for help and sees him toddling off toward the dock. To add to Ava’s issues, she has her loony-bin-worthy family living with her. Her cousin, Jewel-Anne, wheelchair-bound following an accident that killed Ava’s only brother, and the rest of her family treat her like she’s a basket case. Even her best friend (who's Jewel-Anne’s nurse) and the household help are creepy. In fact, everyone in the book qualifies as a character out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Plus, there’s also the little problem of the escaped madman, who may or may not still be hiding on the island, and Ava’s therapist, a woman she fears has grown too close to Ava’s husband, Wyatt. Soon, the landscape is littered with bodies, and Ava is rapidly finding herself the target of a police investigation. With only the help of a newly hired hand on the estate, she tries to prove she’s not crazy and find her son in the bargain. Jackson’s book is crammed with suspects and a palpable air of creepiness, but readers will spot a number of inconsistencies in the story and ultimately grow weary of the way she draws out the action with unnecessary dialogue and details.
Melodramatic and filled with a lot of pointless meanderings, but Jackson’s many fans will still enjoy it.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7582-5857-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Box handles this foolproof formula with complete assurance, keeping the pot at a full boil until the perfunctory,...
The creator of Wyoming Fish and Game Warden Joe Pickett (Breaking Point, 2013, etc.) works the area around Yellowstone National Park in this stand-alone about a long-haul trucker with sex and murder on his mind.
The Lizard King, as he calls himself, normally targets lot lizards—prostitutes who work the parking lots adjacent to the rest stops that dot interstate highways. But he’s more than happy to move up to a higher class of victim when he runs across the Sullivan sisters. Danielle, 18, and Gracie, 16, are supposed to be driving from their mother’s home in Denver to their father’s in Omaha, but Danielle has had the bright idea of heading instead to Bozeman, Mont., to visit her boyfriend, Justin Hoyt. Far from home, their whereabouts known to only a few people, the girls are the perfect victims even before they nearly collide with the Lizard King’s rig and Danielle flips him off. Hours later, very shortly after he’s caught up with them in the depths of Yellowstone and done his best to eradicate every trace of his abduction, Justin, worried that Danielle refused his last phone call, tells his father that something bad has happened. Cody Hoyt, an investigator for the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Department, is already having a tough day: At the insistence of his crooked boss, Sheriff Tubman, his longtime student and new partner, Cassandra Dewell, has just caught him planting evidence in an unrelated murder, and he’s been suspended from his job. If he’s lost his badge, though, Cody’s got plenty of time on his hands to drive downstate and meet with State Trooper Rick Legerski, the ex-husband of his dispatcher’s sister, to talk about what to do next. And so the countdown begins.
Box handles this foolproof formula with complete assurance, keeping the pot at a full boil until the perfunctory, anticlimactic and unsatisfactory ending.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-312-58320-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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