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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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