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BLOOD SPIRAL

Name: BLOOD SPIRAL
Author: G.T. Matteson
ISBN: 978-0615496436

by G.T. Matteson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 6, 2012

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Matteson’s grisly thriller gives the attorney-client relationship a bad name.

Bradley “Hound Dog” Hunt, once a prosperous corporate lawyer, began representing “the most guilty and despicable clients” after his son was killed by a drunk driver in a hit-and-run. Hunt’s clients always walk free, and, soon after they do, Hunt tracks them down and kills them. Revealing Hunt’s secret doesn’t ruin any surprises for the reader because the central question posed by Matteson’s novel is not who murdered Hunt’s clients. It’s not even whether Hunt will be discovered. Rather, the novel probes what the FBI agents on Hunt’s tail will do when they inevitably connect the dots in his crimes, and whether the lonely librarian who becomes besotted with Hunt will remain interested once she discovers the violent truth. The novel opens with Hunt’s gruesome killing of a child pornographer and murderer. Before killing his client, Hunt helped him strike a deal with the federal government that placed him in the witness protection program. We then meet Frank Turbine and Nelson Lyman, the FBI agents assigned to the murder. Matteson alternates between Hunt’s lonely quest to avenge his son’s death, the agents’ investigation and the attractive librarian’s interest in Hunt, which is sparked when her son testifies as a witness during one of Hunt’s trials. The author successfully delivers suspense and surprises, and the novel moves back and forth between California and Pennsylvania at a breakneck pace. Unfortunately, the characters are not as well crafted as the plot. Matteson attempts to create unique characters, such as small-town sheriff Hannibal Johnson and Cherlene, Hunt’s loyal secretary, but in his efforts to make his characters vivid, he indulges a tendency to overwrite. For example, when Turbine drives Lyman down a country road, Matteson does not just write that Lyman “felt more like Tonto than he cared to admit and looked glumly out the window,” he adds that Lyman was “disturbed and confused, sharing only a quiet stoicism with his fictional Indian counterpart.” Similarly, it’s not enough for Lyman to habitually twirl a rubber band; Matteson spells out that in doing so, Lyman shows “his true, hyperkinetic nature.” Overwrought prose slows down an otherwise engrossing thriller.

Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2012

ISBN: 978-0615496436

Page Count: 330

Publisher: Croydon

Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2012

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

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.