Florida adventurer/avenger Dick Thorn, who seems to have lost his first name for good since Mean High Tide (1994), goes up against poachers bent on wiping out whatever endangered specimens they can't capture. Actually, Thorn doesn't cover himself with honor in avenging the death of his old friend Allison Farleigh's daughter Winslow, shot down yards away from her mother in a Borneo jungle. The killers are apparently after the orangutans that the Farleighs had been counting for a census, but the coincidence of Allison's presence is too much to swallow; they've obviously been after her all along. And who are these killers? Allison is sure the man behind murderous twin thugs Rayon and Orlon White is her old foe Joshua Bond, the shady importer of International Primates; but her attempt to get the goods on Bond backfires, guaranteeing that nobody will believe any more accusations she makes against him. And it's just as well, because the Whites are really working for Patrick Bendari Sagawan, the Sultan of Brunei's nephew and Winslow's former crush. Having ordered one Farleigh daughter killed, Patrick proceeds to seduce the other one, Sean, whom he spirits off to romantic Brunei while Thorn, helping Allison enlist ancient poacher Crotch Meriwether against the White brothers, walks into the first of many traps. Though the situations are eminently predictable, they're pepped up by all sorts of grace notes that only Hall could think of: psychopathic Orlon's doomed affair with an eager pancake waitress; Ray's whirlwind courtship of the social worker he's seeing to resolve his obsession with his late mother; the improbable odyssey of the orangutan who's the only eyewitness to Winslow's killing; the punching-bag abuse Thorn keeps taking (from an enraged hog, a bear, a rattlesnake) without unmasking Patrick's evil, grandiose plan. Great dialogue and enough kick in the details to make you forget or forgive the slick damsels-and-other-primates-in- distress scenario. (Author tour)
Pub Date: March 21, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-31231-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
An exhilarating tale delivered with the pace of a thriller and the wisdom of a grizzled nature guide.
Two college friends’ leisurely river trek becomes an ordeal of fire and human malice.
For his fourth novel, Heller swaps the post-apocalyptic setting of his previous book, The Dog Stars (2012), for present-day realism—in this case a river in northern Canada where Dartmouth classmates Jack and Wynn have cleared a few weeks for fly-fishing and whitewater canoeing. Jack is the sharp-elbowed scion of a Colorado ranch family, while Wynn is a more easygoing Vermonter—a divide that becomes more stark as the novel progresses—but they share a love of books and the outdoors. They’re so in sync early on that they agree to lose travel time to turn back and warn a couple they’d overheard arguing that a forest fire is fast approaching. It’s a fateful decision: They discover the woman, Maia, near death and badly injured, apparently by her homicidal husband, Pierre. When Wynn unthinkingly radios Pierre that she’s been found alive, Wynn and Jack realize they’re now targets as well. Heller confidently manages a host of tensions—Jack and Wynn becoming suspicious of each other while watching for Pierre, straining to keep Maia alive, and paddling upriver to reach civilization and escape the nearing blaze. And his pacing is masterful as well, briskly but calmly capturing the scenery in slower moments, then running full-throttle and shifting to barreling prose when danger is imminent. (The fire sounds like “turbines and the sudden shear of a strafing plane, a thousand thumping hooves in cavalcade, the clamor and thud of shields clashing, the swelling applause of multitudes….”) And though the tale is a familiar one of fending off the deadliness of the wilderness and one's fellow man, Heller has such a solid grasp of nature (both human and the outdoors) that the storytelling feels fresh and affecting. In bringing his characters to the brink of death (and past it), Heller speaks soberly to the random perils of everyday living.
An exhilarating tale delivered with the pace of a thriller and the wisdom of a grizzled nature guide.Pub Date: March 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-52187-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
When not lengthily bogged down in angst, a readable, non-formulaic police procedural with a twist. It’s ultimately the...
The discovery of a body near a spooky wood forces a murder-squad detective in Ireland to confront his own horrific past, in an engrossing if melancholy debut.
This mystery, heavy on psycho-drama, is set in the Dublin suburb of Knocknaree and is the first in a sequence to feature detectives Cassie Maddox and Adam Ryan. Adam has hidden his secret from everyone in the police force except his partner and best friend Cassie. She alone knows that he was the surviving child of three who went missing in the wood in 1984. Adam was found clinging to a tree, his shoes full of blood; there was no trace of his pals Peter and Jamie, nor could Adam remember a thing. Now, 20 years on, Katy Devlin’s battered body has been found by the same wood, where an archaeological dig is in progress, under threat from plans for a new road. The investigation—Operation Vestal—evokes queasy sensations and flashes of recollection in Adam. The relationship with Cassie goes awry after the two sleep together. Adam eventually solves the Katy Devlin murder, but in this meditation on lost innocence, psychopathology and fear, his success is ruined when his own history emerges, leading to demotion.
When not lengthily bogged down in angst, a readable, non-formulaic police procedural with a twist. It’s ultimately the confession of a damaged man.Pub Date: May 21, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-670-03860-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
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