An ambitious debut long on history, short on thrills.
In Freiburg’s debut thriller, a woman and her colleagues unleash a mystery when they discover improbably old biblical documents that threaten to alter history.
Corporate attorney Susan Graves is busy closing her last deal for her law firm before she can retire and enjoy life with her husband, Steven. When a stranger with the odd name Dr. Eusebius Cahokia visits her at work, she thinks he might simply be a kook. However, the kook turns out to be one of her biblical archaeology professors from graduate school. While digging at a remote site in Maine, he uncovered a mysterious box of documents written in different ancient languages, a date of 1307 on the hasp. While balancing the responsibilities of her job, Susan enlists the help of her husband, friends and colleagues to try to determine whether the documents are authentic, how old they are and what they mean. Their quest for answers intersects with that of two Japanese men who have similar documents; one of them happens to own the land where the box was found. Yet the more questions are answered, the more mysteries seem to appear, and when people connected to the documents start winding up dead, finding the truth becomes a matter of life or death. Freiburg has created an elaborate story replete with historical details. With few exceptions, his characters are remarkably erudite—to a fault, some readers may think. For example, Susan’s seemingly photographic memory of history is evident when she rattles off facts—it was “Ammonius Saccas who taught Plotinus,” “Rufinus, who updated the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius around 400 CE,” “Hypsicratea…the historian who was the sixth wife of King Mithradates VI of Pontus”—as easily as she orders a glass of A to Z Pinot Noir. The attention to detail is impressive, although the sheer amount tends to weigh down the plot. With international flights, hotel stays at the Pierre and the Fours Seasons, and dinners at Le Bernardin and Daniel, the characters’ jet-set lifestyles may push the bounds of believability. Nevertheless, religious history and archaeology buffs will find plenty to sate their appetites. Others, however, will be stymied by the surfeit of details and leisurely pace in the 500-plus-page story.
An ambitious debut long on history, short on thrills.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1496928757
Page Count: 516
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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