A satisfying sequel and one of the best legal thrillers of the year.
A routine case leads a former judge into a web of intrigue in Boldt’s novel.
Nearly three years after State Administrative Judge Jason Erickson was injured in a shooting that killed his girlfriend Tara, his life in Wisconsin has resumed a semblance of normalcy, including a steady relationship with lawyer Grace Clarkson. One afternoon, Grace asks for his help with a case involving a coal shipment and storage facility located on Lake Superior that wants to renew its permit; she represents a consortium of local and environmental groups opposed to the renewal. Jason’s involvement in the case unites him with a surprising ally: Earl Franks, a disgraced former lawyer whose gambling addiction led to his involvement with the man who shot Jason and Tara. Though Earl has lost his law license, his relevant case experience is an asset, and he genuinely wants to help Grace and Jason. As the case progresses, Jason’s relationship with Grace falters (“Grace had a certain coldness, a façade that he could seldom get behind”) after he meets Camille, a free-spirited Unitarian minister, and Grace rekindles her relationship with colleague Tim Gergen. When Grace and Jason come to suspect the facility is not adequately following environmental regulations, they work with Camille and Earl to surreptitiously obtain coal samples; what seems like a simple plan goes horribly awry, putting careers—and lives—at risk. Boldt’s sequel to Blue Lake (2022) is a captivating page-turner that balances courtroom drama with a deeper exploration of the characters introduced in the author’s debut. Jason Erickson is a strong protagonist whose journey to rebuild his life after losing Tara provides some poignant moments in the novel. The well-drawn supporting characters include Earl Franks, whose redemption arc is nuanced and compelling; Courtney Sharpe, the attorney representing the coal storage facility who has a personal connection to Earl Franks; and Camille, the compassionate minister who offers Jason another chance at love. While this is a direct sequel to Blue Lake, Boldt expertly weaves enough backstory throughout the narrative to establish the connections between the characters for new readers.
A satisfying sequel and one of the best legal thrillers of the year.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9798891324596
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.
Could making a movie about the disappearance of five women from an island reawaken an evil presence there?
Five dresses hang from the topmost limbs of an oak on a remote island in a Vermont lake. That memorable image marks a mystery from a century ago, when five women believed to have been part of a commune vanished forever. As this novel opens, another group gathers on the island to make a movie based on that tale. Marin Keane, the narrator, is surprised but thrilled to find herself cast as one of the leads; she’s a struggling actor whose biggest part so far has been “Bridesmaid with Eczema” in a drug commercial, so playing Daisy Rue, whose haunting diary is the basis for the movie’s script, could be a career-making move. Ronan Peters, the writer-director, is talented and, Marin notes, hot. His reason for gathering the cast on the island is a kind of boot-camp rehearsal: They’ll spend a week living there, wearing period clothes, and managing without internet or phone service. Oh, and holding séances. What could go wrong? Marin quickly meets the other women in the cast: regal character actor Julianne Brown, cool and competent Heather Benchley, bratty former Disney star Susie Hutchinson, and, striking awe in all of them, Violet Wright, a much-awarded Meryl Streep-ish figure who will play the woman who brought the others to the island, which she owned. They get to work, but soon enough someone disappears. The book’s plot, like the movie’s script, largely follows Daisy’s journal, and since the reader is supplied with pages-long sections of that journal, there’s not much suspense about what will happen next. There are some effective set pieces, such as the group’s first séance. But in its last quarter, the plot collapses into a muddle of #MeToo vengeance, improbable secrets, and jarring character reveals that is, as Marin says, “the most Scooby-Doo thing I’ve ever heard.”
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798217044092
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
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