A wholly absorbing gumshoe tale elevated by an extraordinary detective.
A reverend in New Mexico tries her hand at sleuthing when a recent homicide shares similarities with her twin sister’s unsolved murder in this mystery.
Cecilia “Cici” Gurule’s weekly hike with her detective friend Sam Chastain is cut short by a missing hiker report. Sadly, the two find lawyer Donald Johnson, who’s unmistakably dead from stab wounds. But it’s one particular laceration that most unnerves Cici: through the kidney, just like the stabbing death of her twin, Anna Carmen, over a year ago. This is followed by Cici’s vision of her sister, who tells the reverend to help Sam identify her killer. Cici, who quit as associate reverend in Boston to return to her Santa Fe hometown after her sister’s murder, now heads a local church. She gathers information, initially from her parishioners, but doesn’t like where it’s leading her. That’s because linking the two murders naturally connects Anna Carmen to Donald’s alleged exploits, from an affair to drug trafficking. It’s soon apparent, however, that the killer is watching Cici, as she receives threatening messages and eludes a menacing truck in pursuit. But this doesn’t deter the reverend, who, with Sam’s assistance, plans to see her personal investigation to the end. Padgett’s (A Moonlit Serenade, 2018, etc.) series opener, like any good detective story, gives readers a laudable sleuth. Cici is a chic woman of God: She swears and rides a vintage Harley. But her profession makes her an exceptional detective as well. Characters, for example, often seem reluctant to talk to Sam and more easily respond to the reverend. Likewise, Cici’s empathy is genuine; she speaks a line like “I needyou to tell us what happened” with unequivocal concern. Despite her occasional colorful language, there are few curses and mostly implied violence. Padgett’s simple prose and short paragraphs help maintain the story’s unwavering pace. Add to that a handful of dubious characters, and the result is a rock-solid mystery with a smashing reveal near the end and even a subtle twist in the final pages.
A wholly absorbing gumshoe tale elevated by an extraordinary detective.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-945090-22-6
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Sidecar Press
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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