A creature feature that earns its suspense by rigorously developing its characters.
A vicious beast menaces residents of a Montana town in the 1990s in Smith’s (Silent Source, 2016) thriller.
Veterinarian Dieter Harmon has amassed few clients during his three months in the town of Colter, but his friend Molly Schoonover still calls him when rancher Josh Pendleton loses a llama to a possible wolf attack. Livestock kills in the area have recently spiked, but chief park ranger Jack Corey is hesitant to blame the deaths on wolves; he endorses the National Park Service’s plan, initiated two years ago, to re-establish the wolf population in Yellowstone. Later, Dieter stumbles upon the mutilated body of a hiker, and local cops suspect the vet as a possible murderer. Meanwhile, Molly witnesses something horrific while visiting local Joseph Vincent Loudermilk’s farm that gives her reason to fear for one of the women living there. After that woman runs away, Molly searches for her. At the same time, Dieter, Josh, and Amy Little Bear (the nanny to Dieter’s two kids and a pilot) set out to prove the existence of a killer wolf and, if necessary, track it down. Smith peppers his story with chilling scenes of a quick and tenacious animal on the loose. The human characters, meanwhile, are exhaustively developed as the story alternates between Dieter, Molly, and Jack, among others. There are hints of other mysteries (such as the unsolved murder of Dieter’s wife) as well as bits of comedy, as when Dieter and Josh’s plan to examine a cadaver at the funeral home predictably turns into a fiasco. Smith’s writing is full of evocative language, such as when a deadly assault lasts “a brief eternity” and a geyser’s steam vanishes in “spirit-like wisps.” Readers will easily deduce what exactly is killing people and livestock, but Smith wisely focuses on the urgent need to stop the beast rather than on a prolonged elucidation of it.
A creature feature that earns its suspense by rigorously developing its characters.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64062-020-9
Page Count: 265
Publisher: Braveship Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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