A tourist in China finds a real ghost story—and antagonists who want it to stay secret—in this novel.
Jackson Stone has a plan—sort of. When readers first meet him, Jackson is hoping to be left behind by his tour group for one night in the ghost city of Hensu. The place has been abandoned since the area was intentionally flooded, and while there are scary statues, there don’t seem to be a lot of actual ghosts. That’s too bad for Jackson, who plans to start a new life writing about famous haunted places even if he has to make up the apparitions. (He’ll call it “narrative non-fiction,” he thinks to himself in one of many humorous asides.) But when a mysterious pale figure shows up and tells him, “I live here,” Jackson doesn’t immediately realize that he’s stumbled onto a ghost story and a murder mystery—and that he won’t find peace until he tells the dead woman’s tale. Jackson resists at first while her spirit follows him around, leading to the usual genre attempt to figure out how this woman gets into his locked room. Luckily for Jackson, who starts out not believing in ghosts, his fellow tourist Kate is a medium who can feel and talk with phantoms. Unluckily for Jackson, their Chinese tour guide, Harold, doesn’t like him very much and has his own secrets connected to Hensu. Can Kate and Jackson find the truth before they’re stopped by either the living or the dead? Moncrieff (The Girl Who Talks to Ghosts, 2017, etc.) has a breezy, confident prose style that skillfully evokes the dread of the situation and a very smart plot setup. The age-old “Why don’t they go to the authorities?” question here is sidestepped by the investigators being tourists in China and the nation’s officials being implicated. (Or are they?) Familiar scenes—spooky nightmares, messages from the dead—are enlivened by the engaging characters. All of the players here have histories that haunt them, making them that much more believable.
A fun, chilling supernatural tale.Pub Date: April 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9877129-3-6
Page Count: 282
Publisher: DeathZone Books
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE
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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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A strongly felt, if not terribly gripping, sendoff for a Turow favorite nearly 35 years after his appearance in Presumed...
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Trying his final case at 85, celebrated criminal defense lawyer Sandy Stern defends a Nobel-winning doctor and longtime friend whose cancer wonder drug saved Stern's life but subsequently led to the deaths of others.
Federal prosecutors are charging the eminent doctor, Kiril Pafko, with murder, fraud, and insider trading. An Argentine émigré like Stern, Pafko is no angel. His counselor is certain he sold stock in the company that produced the drug, g-Livia, before users' deaths were reported. The 78-year-old Nobelist is a serial adulterer whose former and current lovers have strong ties to the case. Working for one final time alongside his daughter and proficient legal partner, Marta, who has announced she will close the firm and retire along with her father following the case, Stern must deal not only with "senior moments" before Chief Judge Sonya "Sonny" Klonsky, but also his physical frailty. While taking a deep dive into the ups and downs of a complicated big-time trial, Turow (Testimony, 2017, etc.) crafts a love letter to his profession through his elegiac appreciation of Stern, who has appeared in all his Kindle County novels. The grandly mannered attorney (his favorite response is "Just so") has dedicated himself to the law at great personal cost. But had he not spent so much of his life inside courtrooms, "He never would have known himself." With its bland prosecutors, frequent focus on technical details like "double-blind clinical trials," and lack of real surprises, the novel likely will disappoint some fans of legal thrillers. But this smoothly efficient book gains timely depth through its discussion of thorny moral issues raised by a drug that can extend a cancer sufferer's life expectancy at the risk of suddenly ending it.
A strongly felt, if not terribly gripping, sendoff for a Turow favorite nearly 35 years after his appearance in Presumed Innocent.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4813-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | THRILLER | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER
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