A fast-paced adventure with a deep backdrop of religious scholarship.
In Small’s (God as the Ground of Being, 2009) theological thriller, an American grad student traveling through Bhutan uncovers a secret, ancient connection between the world’s major religions.
In a remote monastery, Grant Matthews befriends Kinley Goenpo, a wise older monk who shares his spirit of curiosity. Deep within the monastery’s library is exactly what Grant has been searching for: ancient texts purporting to show a direct link between the teachings of Hinduism and early Christianity. The two join forces with Kristin Misaki, a free-spirited traveling journalist with whom Grant quickly becomes infatuated, to try to bring the evidence to light. They’re thwarted by conservative religious leaders, both in Kinley’s Buddhist order and within the evangelical Christian community in the United States. Most threatening of all is Tim Huntley—a Christian extremist, ex-soldier and ruthless killer—who makes it his mission to ensure that the texts are destroyed along with whomever stands in his way. Soon, the enigmatic Kinley disappears with the texts in order to protect them, leaving Grant and Kristin to follow his trail across India and Bhutan, with Huntley close behind them. The novel’s themes give Small, who studied religion at Oxford, ample opportunity to explore the history and common traits of different faiths. He handles subjects like the development of the Gospels and the nature of Hindu deities without slowing down the action. The storyline offers brief lessons on various locations—the Taj Mahal, the Hindu pilgrimage city of Varanasi and the mountaintop Taktsang monastery in the Himalayas—as they become focal points in the plot. A few moments feel a bit contrived, though, and the villains sometimes veer toward being melodramatically evil. Overall, however, the religious themes don’t come across as gimmicky, and Small seems sincerely interested in exploring the relationship between faith and fact.
A fast-paced adventure with a deep backdrop of religious scholarship.Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1933512860
Page Count: 414
Publisher: West Hills Press
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The story is sadly familiar, the treatment claustrophobically intense.
Twenty years after Chloe Davis’ father was convicted of killing half a dozen young women, someone seems to be celebrating the anniversary by extending the list.
No one in little Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, was left untouched by Richard Davis’ confession, least of all his family members. His wife, Mona, tried to kill herself and has been incapacitated ever since. His son, Cooper, became so suspicious that even now it’s hard for him to accept pharmaceutical salesman Daniel Briggs, whose sister, Sophie, also vanished 20 years ago, as Chloe’s fiance. And Chloe’s own nightmares, which lead her to rebuff New York Times reporter Aaron Jansen, who wants to interview her for an anniversary story, are redoubled when her newest psychiatric patient, Lacey Deckler, follows the path of high school student Aubrey Gravino by disappearing and then turning up dead. The good news is that Dick Davis, whom Chloe has had no contact with ever since he was imprisoned after his confession, obviously didn’t commit these new crimes. The bad news is that someone else did, someone who knows a great deal about the earlier cases, someone who could be very close to Chloe indeed. First-timer Willingham laces her first-person narrative with a stifling sense of victimhood that extends even to the survivors and a series of climactic revelations, at least some of which are guaranteed to surprise the most hard-bitten readers.
The story is sadly familiar, the treatment claustrophobically intense.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2508-0382-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Smart, edgy, and entertaining as heck.
Against her better judgment, Lucy Chase returns to her hometown of Plumpton, Texas, for her grandmother’s birthday, knowing full well that almost everyone in town still believes she murdered her best friend five years ago, when they were in their early 20s.
Coincidentally—or is it?—Ben Owens, a true-crime podcaster, is also in town, interviewing Lucy’s family and former friends about the murder of Savannah Harper, “just the sweetest girl you ever met,” who died from several violent blows to the head. Lucy was found hours later covered in blood, with no memory of what happened. She was—and is—a woman with secrets, which has not endeared her to the people of Plumpton; their narrative is that she was always violent, secretive, difficult. But Ben wants to tell Lucy’s story; attractive and relentless, he uncovers new evidence and coaxes new interviews, and people slowly begin to question whether Lucy is truly guilty. Lucy, meanwhile, lets down her guard, and as she and Ben draw closer together, she has to finally face the truth of her past and unmask the murderer of her complicated, gorgeous, protective friend. Most of the novel is told from Lucy’s point of view, which allows for a natural unspooling of the layers of her life and her story. She’s strong, she’s prickly, and we gradually begin to understand just how wronged she has been. The story is a striking commentary on the insular and harmful nature of small-town prejudice and how women who don’t fit a certain mold are often considered outliers, if not straight-up villains. Tintera is smart to capitalize on how the true-crime podcast boom informs and infuses the current fictional thriller scene; she’s also effective at writing action that transcends the podcast structure.
Smart, edgy, and entertaining as heck.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781250880314
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
