An exciting tale of vicious predators on land and at sea.
Engaged grad students in the Bahamas tangle with deadly sea creatures and an even deadlier cartel in this tense thriller.
Cael Seabrook and his future wife, Aja, see their summer trip to Bimini in 1984 as “an early honeymoon.” They’re on a beautiful tropical island, living in a rental house overlooking a lagoon, but the two are working on their doctoral dissertations, as well; Aja studies cone snails, while Seabrook catches, tags, and tracks juvenile lemon sharks. It’s dangerous work, as cone snails are one of the world’s most venomous animals, and Seabrook, out on a boat alone, could run into aggressive tiger sharks. Their most unsettling encounter, however, doesn’t involve sea creatures. An armed man, with scarred holes where his ears once were, forces Aja, a certified emergency medical technician, to tend to his gunshot wounds. He eventually leaves the couple’s home, but it’s clear he belongs to a cartel, and Seabrook and Aja worry that he’ll someday return. Indeed, cartel members do rear their ugly heads but with an unexpected demand: They want the $50 million that the “Earless Man” evidently stole. The Dores cartel, which is notorious for “brazen acts of violence,” sends its deadliest hit man, Pelon, who has slaughterhouse saws and grinders for torturing and murdering victims. The cartel abducts Aja and threatens to take her life unless Seabrook comes up with cash that he doesn’t have. As Aja searches for a way to escape her captors, Seabrook uses his expertise and experience to try to appease the cartel just long enough to save his true love.
The first half of Butcher’s novel is a slow but riveting build to fierce confrontations with evil. For example, the appealing couple initially befriends their landlord’s children, whom they affectionately dub “the Sea Cherubs.” The three kids get their own subplot as they desperately try to evade their abusive father. Around the same time, Seabrook spots signs of a sea creature with a powerful bite; when he finally sees this “Razormouth,” it’s an “otherworldly fish” that he’s convinced is an entirely new species. Once the cartel villains take center stage in the latter half, the author amps up the suspense in earnest. Pelon and cartel head Concha Dores are revealed as cold, ferocious individuals who take glee in hurting others; indeed, the book features copious scenes of bloody and visceral imagery. But it’s Seabrook and Aja’s fight against a menacing enemy that has the most impact, as the nail-biting tension rarely lets up. Butcher also offers alluring prose, as when describing the water’s rainbow hues: “some gilded and electric, others mystical, others dark and opaque, and others celestial and crystalline.” Moreover, the lovingly detailed sea creatures become characters in their own rights, from the mysterious and elusive Razormouth to Clara, a baby nurse shark that seems quite fond of Aja’s belly rubs. Some even play a part in the superb final act, which offers thorough resolution and a surprise or two.
An exciting tale of vicious predators on land and at sea.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7379603-0-0
Page Count: 399
Publisher: Deep Reef Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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