A worthwhile examination of the evil that lurks beneath one man’s placid exterior.
A debut novel takes a definite stand on the nature-versus-nurture argument.
In his thriller, Bathgate comes down firmly on the side of nature. The villain in his story is born evil, the son of a violent criminal, and can’t overcome that, despite having a loving, if deeply scarred, mother. Jim Doyle grows up sheltered by his mother and other relatives. Still, because of his temper, people keep getting hurt around him. The Scotsman finds an appropriate outlet for his aggression by joining the Parachute Regiment. But trouble follows him, which inhibits his military career. Bathgate’s protagonist, Tom Mitchell, meets Jim after one such incident, when Tom is nearing the end of his hitch as a military policeman. Jim is badly injured following a bar altercation; one of the locals was killed. Tom suspects Jim, a karate expert, intentionally murdered the man, but the official ruling is self-defense. Tom leaves the military and sets up an investigative agency for businesses in his hometown of Edinburgh. He discovers that Jim has also left the service and moved there, starting his own karate studio. Suspicious of Jim, Tom looks him up: “Beneath the apparent shyness and reserve, Tom suspected that Doyle had a vicious temper and a propensity for violent behaviour.” Tom makes the mistake of introducing Jim to his younger sister, Margaret. But when Jim and Margaret draw closer, Tom has to find out the truth about this man. Bathgate has crafted an engrossing narrative that reveals how many people ultimately can be affected by one violent event. He effectively relates the histories of Tom and Jim to show how they became the men they are now. The author delivers well-constructed main characters in Jim, Tom, and Margaret. He illustrates how Jim just can’t resist the urges ingrained in him by his rapist father, despite his mother’s best intentions, and how Tom doggedly pursues the truth, in part to protect his sister. Some readers may place higher value on nurturing, but Bathgate effectively makes the argument that Jim was predestined to become a monster. The result is a chilling portrait of a predator.
A worthwhile examination of the evil that lurks beneath one man’s placid exterior.Pub Date: June 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5246-8257-6
Page Count: 242
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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