Wipe away all the blood and you’re left with a dull, unsurprising serial killer tale.
The death of an elusive serial killer, who may have snatched one last victim before he died, sends Chicago cops on a mad dash to uncover his identity and unravel his bizarre crimes.
Chasing a killer for five years is a grind, especially one as wily as the self-proclaimed Four Monkey Killer, who, in a tired twist on the vigilante theme, chooses his (young, female) victims based on the sins of their family members. For Chicago homicide detective Sam Porter, the case is nearly as consuming as the personal issues that eat away at him as predictably as Barker’s (Forsaken, 2014) other telegraphed plot developments. When a man steps in front of a city bus, it seems like suicide until his personal effects are examined and it’s discovered that he’s carrying a box addressed to Arthur Talbot containing a human ear, later identified as belonging to Talbot’s daughter, Emory. That’s Four Monkey’s calling card: first the ear (hear no evil), then the eyes (see no evil), then the tongue (speak no evil), and finally the corpse (do no evil). Except it seems like the killer’s own corpse is now in a body bag. Porter also finds a diary on the body—which Barker heavily excerpts and which readers might wish could be excised like the killer excises body parts—that chronicles Four Monkey’s unusually gory upbringing. Along with his partner, a motley assortment of cookie-cutter cops, and a CSI expert named Watson, whose ability to rattle off facts rivals the supercomputer, Porter races to find Emory, growing increasingly unsure if Four Monkey is really dead.
Wipe away all the blood and you’re left with a dull, unsurprising serial killer tale.Pub Date: June 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-96884-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
An exciting, thought-provoking mind-bender.
In Crouch’s sci-fi–driven thriller, a machine designed to help people relive their memories creates apocalyptic consequences.
In 2018, NYPD Detective Barry Sutton unsuccessfully tries to talk Ann Voss Peters off the edge of the Poe Building. She claims to have False Memory Syndrome, a bewildering condition that seems to be spreading. People like Ann have detailed false memories of other lives lived, including marriages and children, but in “shades of gray, like film noir stills.” For some, like Ann, an overwhelming sense of loss leads to suicide. Barry knows loss: Eleven years ago, his 15-year-old daughter, Meghan, was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Details from Ann’s story lead him to dig deeper, and his investigation leads him to a mysterious place called Hotel Memory, where he makes a life-altering discovery. In 2007, a ridiculously wealthy philanthropist and inventor named Marcus Slade offers neuroscientist Helena Smith the chance of a lifetime and an unlimited budget to build a machine that allows people to relive their memories. He says he wants to “change the world.” Helena hopes that her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, will benefit from her passion project. The opportunity for unfettered research is too tempting to turn down. However, when Slade takes the research in a controversial direction, Helena may have to destroy her dream to save the world. Returning to a few of the themes he explored in Dark Matter (2016), Crouch delivers a bullet-fast narrative and raises the stakes to a fever pitch. A poignant love story is woven in with much food for thought on grief and the nature of memories and how they shape us, rounding out this twisty and terrifying thrill ride.
An exciting, thought-provoking mind-bender.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-5978-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. "Superflu" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization—excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God—or the Devil. The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as "the dark man" or "the Walking Dude" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fans will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1978
ISBN: 0307743683
Page Count: 1450
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1978
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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