Prolific lawyer and retired law professor Lieberman’s first solo novel is a whimsical tale of a secret plot to make seriously bad guys incriminate themselves.
Throughout his long and storied criminal career, Romo Malbonum, the Deckled Don, has never had to answer any legal charges. But one day, FBI agent Dewey Sisal tells Assistant U.S. Attorney Mallory Greenstock, the Don approached him and said he wanted to confess in court to a litany of crimes. In order to ensure that everything’s aboveboard, Malbonum will be represented by the illustrious Jedidiah Cardsworth Tillinghast, one-time college roommate of the presiding judge, Horton Pickscreed, and the confession will be captured on video. The only condition is that the proceedings must be wrapped up by this coming Friday. Mallory rubs her eyes, asks a few skeptical questions, and agrees, and Malbonum appears on schedule and confesses for hours as Judge Pickscreed looks on in growing bewilderment. Weird? Absolutely. But not nearly as weird as the moment days later when Malbonum, now that he’s been duly recorded, sentenced, and imprisoned, maintains that the whole confession was a hoax because whoever made it wasn’t him, despite oodles of evidence that it was. Troubled and baffled, Mallory calls on her old acquaintance and consulting detective T.R. Softly to get to the bottom of the mystery, and within days, Softly has discovered that this entire spectacle has been a mere curtain raiser to a deep-laid plot against President Mark Malleycorn Pohtiss, an intemperate crackpot whose public pronouncements, reprinted at length, are so demented and fact-free that the FBI’s code name for him is Fruitcake.
A broad, sweetly fantastical satire just perfect for readers in the mood.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953103-11-6
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Three Rooms Press
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
44
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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. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Light on suspense but still a solid page-turner.
64
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When a devoted husband and father disappears, his wife and daughter set out to find him.
Hannah Hall is deeply in love with her husband of one year, Owen Michaels. She’s also determined to win over his 16-year-old daughter, Bailey, who has made it very clear that she’s not thrilled with her new stepmother. Despite the drama, the family is mostly a happy one. They live in a lovely houseboat in Sausalito; Hannah is a woodturner whose handmade furniture brings in high-dollar clientele; and Owen works for The Shop, a successful tech firm. Their lives are shattered, however, when Hannah receives a note saying “Protect her” and can’t reach Owen by phone. Then there’s the bag full of cash Bailey finds in her school locker and the shocking news that The Shop’s CEO has been taken into custody. Hannah learns that the FBI has been investigating the firm for about a year regarding some hot new software they took to market before it was fully functional, falsifying their financial statements. Hannah refuses to believe her husband is involved in the fraud, and a U.S. marshal assigned to the case claims Owen isn’t a suspect. Hannah doesn’t know whom to trust, though, and she and Bailey resolve to root out the clues that might lead to Owen. They must also learn to trust one another. Hannah’s narrative alternates past and present, detailing her early days with Owen alongside her current hunt for him, and author Dave throws in a touch of danger and a few surprises. But what really drives the story is the evolving nature of Hannah and Bailey’s relationship, which is by turns poignant and frustrating but always realistic.
Light on suspense but still a solid page-turner.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7134-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Categories: SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | GENERAL FICTION
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