While flawed, this thriller about a psychopath still delivers plenty of action and a fine introduction to a new author.
The search for a ruthless killer brings together the police departments and the citizenry of two small Missouri towns.
This debut novel, a thriller set in the quiet towns of Blackhorse and Sweetwater, follows a crowded cast of primary characters whose back stories converge. Former U.S. Marshal Stuart Riedel, seriously injured in a takedown, moves with his wife and three children from Chicago to Blackhorse, where he has been hired as a police detective. He immediately becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of an apparently unknown young woman (“There were no real leads at this point, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He just needed to continue bulldogging the case and working the streets. Being new in town made him feel like a rookie again”). Simultaneously, over in Sweetwater, Charlie Joe Bingham, an impetuous young lawyer, represents her friend Audrey Lemoine in court in a child custody case. When Charlie Joe engages in some courtroom antics that are less than orthodox and result in a violent outburst by Audrey’s husband, Neil, the judge assigns her to a month’s service in Legal Aid. The posting forces her to work closely with childhood friend and love interest Sheriff Jeremiah Stone. Meanwhile, a psychopathic killer lurks in the woods, his sights set on Charlie Joe and Reidel and his family. Readers should understand rather quickly how most of these characters are related, but the real question is who will survive. Buck displays some impressive skills. The complicated plot is well organized, and the author moves the focus smoothly back and forth between the two towns, gradually building tension. Despite the careful construction of the narrative, there are a few problems with the text. The timeline seems a bit off, as Stone and Charlie Joe must be at least a bit older than the story implies if he is already a sheriff and she a licensed lawyer. Then there is the occasional inconsistency—a friend’s house is three blocks away early in the story and 15 blocks away later on. And the author allows a few minor linguistic errors to creep in. At one point, for example, Buck writes that someone has been “prosecuted to the full extend [sic] of the law.”
While flawed, this thriller about a psychopath still delivers plenty of action and a fine introduction to a new author.Pub Date: July 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5029-6398-7
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.
A Christian woman and a Jewish man fall in love in medieval France.
In 1088, a Christian girl of Norman descent falls in love with the son of a rabbi. They run away together, to disastrous effect: Her father sends knights after them, and though they flee to a small southern village where they spend a few happy years, their budding family is soon decimated by a violent wave of First Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem. The girl, whose name becomes Hamoutal when she converts to Judaism, winds up roaming the world. Hertmans’ (War and Turpentine, 2016, etc.) latest novel is based on a true story: The Cairo Genizah, a trove of medieval manuscripts preserved in an Egyptian synagogue, contained an account of Hamoutal’s plight. Hamoutal makes up about half of Hertmans’ novel; the other half is consumed by Hertmans’ own interest in her story. Whenever he can, he follows her journey: from Rouen, where she grew up, to Monieux, where she and David Todros—her Jewish husband—made a brief life for themselves, and all the way to Cairo, and back. “Knowing her life story and its tragic end,” Hertmans writes, “I wish I could warn her of what lies ahead.” The book has a quiet intimacy to it, and in his descriptions of landscape and travel, Hertmans’ prose is frequently lovely. In Narbonne, where David’s family lived, Hertmans describes “the cool of the paving stones in the late morning, the sound of doves’ wings flapping in the immaculate air.” But despite the drama of Hamoutal’s story, there is a static quality to the book, particularly in the sections where Hertmans describes his own travels. It’s an odd contradiction: Hertmans himself moves quickly through the world, but his book doesn’t quite move quickly enough.
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4708-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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