Another slickly-plotted, adrenaline-fueled installment showcasing a superior police procedural with a twist.
In Seaborne’s novel, an air charter pilot with supernatural powers joins forces with his detective wife to solve a brutal murder and unravel a massive government conspiracy in the process.
Air charter pilot Will Stewart is back for the 12th installment of the author’s Divisible Man series—and this time, he and his detective wife, Andy, must rescue one of their own. Will’s colleague Pidge is in danger when an “amateur internet detective” threatens to expose Pidge’s identity as the mysterious blonde who disrupted a Nazi rally in Lincoln, Nebraska. Company W, a paramilitary insurgency group that specializes in all things racist, is willing to literally kill for that information—and it seems that they have done so when a young woman named Tiffany Vera Callum, mistakenly identified as the Nazi rally disruptor, is found dead, having been burned alive. As rumors swirl about the motivation behind Tiffany’s murder (as well as her sexual orientation, gender identity, and propensity for witchcraft), Will and Andy attempt to hunt down the presumed killers. Along the way, they stumble across clues to a conspiracy so big that it threatens the lives and livelihoods of everyone in America. Now, the race is on to warn the president about the backdoor dealings that may or may not involve some of his closest advisors—but Will and Andy can’t be sure who to trust, or how high up the chain of command the deadly plot really goes. Helping them along the way, as usual, is the use of Will’s extraordinary secret powers—namely, his abilities to fly and turn invisible: “This thing—what I call the other thing—allows me to disappear. It defies gravity. It cures where there is no cure. It saved me. It may kill me.”
With a smooth narrative style and snappy dialogue, Seaborne keeps the plot moving without ever getting bogged down in procedural details. He also manages to show a vulnerability in Will that makes the action-fueled character surprisingly relatable—still traumatized by a past shooting, Will realizes there’s even more at stake now that Andy’s pregnant: “I’ve grown paranoid and prejudiced. Since the brave American patriots of Company W shot my house to pieces, parts of the country I once relished for rural flavor and the wholesome lifestyle I grew up in now feel to me like havens for men whose beliefs had been pretzel twisted until they justified opening fire on the home of a law enforcement officer.” Readers will likely draw some pretty obvious (and depressing) parallels between the book’s conspiracy plot and modern politics, which make this series entry feel all the more relevant. There are sure to be readers who wish that Will was just a normal protagonist without any superpowers—following him invisibly floating around a hotel room to retrieve a bank password can be a bit jarring. It is a testament to Seaborne’s prowess as a writer that Will’s paranormal abilities exist seamlessly (for the most part) right alongside the hyper-realistic, grounded action plot that swirls around him. While the novel functions much more solidly as an action thriller than a superhero story, the two genres coexist comfortably, ultimately coming together to form a tale that’s equal parts heartfelt and intriguing.
Another slickly-plotted, adrenaline-fueled installment showcasing a superior police procedural with a twist.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2024
ISBN: 9781958005606
Page Count: 426
Publisher: Trans World Data
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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