An exhilarating entry in a thoroughly enjoyable series.
In Padgett’s (A Heritage of Death, 2018, etc.) latest series installment, a reverend finds herself embroiled in an international criminal organization’s nefarious plot.
All that the Rev. Cici Gurule wants is a pleasant, two-day vacation hiking in Chaco Canyon National Park in New Mexico. Instead, she stumbles upon two armed men threatening a third. She manages to stay hidden from them, but as she tries to silently sprint back to her car, she hears gunshots, and the aforementioned third man hops into her Subaru with her. He says his name is Anton Vasiliev and that he’s a spy for an agency whose name he won’t reveal. He also divulges little information about the people who are chasing them, but he says that an international crime syndicate has a complicated scheme in the works involving a stolen Chacoan Native American artifact. Anton is skilled in combat, and Cici has the know-how to survive the harsh New Mexico environment—which includes a puma encounter when she and Anton are fleeing on foot. She also communicates with the spirit of her late twin sister, Anna Carmen, who the reverend believes can help her. Meanwhile, Cici’s friend and potential love interest, Detective Sam Chastain, joins authorities as they try to thwart the syndicate—and hopefully save Cici, as well. Although the preceding books in Padgett’s series are straightforward murder mysteries, this third installment is more of an action-packed thriller. The author kicks the story off with impressive momentum and later introduces further gunfights, explosions, and sometimes-dangerous weather. The prose is also sublimely concise: “Her fingers tensed, aching with effort as she slid backward. She scrabbled for purchase, wincing at the tug of pain in her knee.” In between action scenes, Padgett fleshes out her characters, building sympathy for the initially cold Anton and romantic tension between Cici and Sam. Readers who are new to the series will easily be able to follow the narrative, and they may be inclined to check out earlier, as well as future, installments.
An exhilarating entry in a thoroughly enjoyable series.Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Sidecar Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2019
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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