A fast-paced, tangled mystery with an eerie sci-fi twist.
Crime drama meets sci-fi mayhem in Chloe’s (No Last Tattoo, 2013, etc.) haunting alien thriller.
Natt Whitehall is no stranger to alien life forms—he’s conducted extensive scientific research on the subject—but he finds himself helplessly looking on as his innocent sandwich run turns into an otherworldly nightmare at just after 9:30 on a dark night in Los Angeles. As Natt walks down the street, a mysterious teenage boy plunges pointy objects into the necks of two dark, hooded creatures before departing from the scene. Natt’s frantic 911 call summons the unflappable Gina O’Neill, an FBI agent and former lover with a formidable talent for solving crimes. Together, Natt and O’Neill embark on an investigation into a strange series of attacks that have resulted in skinned human bodies washing up on the shores of Malibu. The investigation leads them to Ziarre, the strange, deeply troubled owner of a car seen at the crime scene, and her grandfather Christian Donaldson. As Ziarre’s story unfolds, so does the dark history of the U.S. government’s involvement with a synthetically engineered breed of aliens known as bio-soldiers. Complicated by the presence of Ziarre’s sinister boss, Joe Evans, the plot unfolds in a heart-stopping web of drugs, sex, violence—and one young woman’s painful trail of self-discovery. Chloe’s writing is alive with detail—brand-name pizza receives just as much attention as alien attacks, and the result is a rare sense of verisimilitude that makes the presence of aliens in modern-day California feel all the more real and chilling. The action unfolds quickly, but Chloe’s tendency to give blow-by-blow descriptions of minor movements can make even sex scenes and alien onslaughts feel belabored and somewhat slow. The rapid shifts in time and point of view can feel haphazard and abrupt, too, and it takes a careful reader to follow the twists and turns of the complex yet compelling plot.
A fast-paced, tangled mystery with an eerie sci-fi twist.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1452578743
Page Count: 112
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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