A rollicking, complex read.
A densely plotted, gay coming-of-age novel starring the talented Erik, whose lengthy history is half hard-boiled Jim Thompson mayhem and half Martha Grimes youthful fantasia, heavily laden with crime, war (both international and domestic), alcoholism and, ultimately, personal triumph.
DuVal’s debut begins in 1928 with an identity change for shadowy Klaus Altman, whose ties to the Philadelphia mob forces him to go undercover as Max Anders, protector of Galena Baldwin. No angel herself, the promiscuous 14-year-old Galena finds herself pregnant. She blackmails sexually ambiguous Max into marriage and they run away together, largely to escape the unwanted attentions of her stepfather and the Mafia, and live unhappily ever after. When Erik is born, his red hair instantly sours any maternal feelings Galena might have had; she loathes her child on sight, as he is a constant reminder of the man who raped her. For a time, a boozy calm ensues as Max, Galena and precocious Erik negotiate various forms of a separate peace. And there’s music, by way of Erik’s eccentric grandmother. But then the sordid past catches up with them; sexy, sinister Trouper Pete, another of Galena’s ersatz protectors, makes things more difficult, as does the charmingly evil Det. Weakly. Bodies turn up and liquor, lies and debauchery take their toll. As Erik’s home life disintegrates, his sexuality burgeons; he takes up with wise young Allen at university and even more complexities of the sexual, familial and social sorts arise. Ultimately, in an utterly unbelievable (but delightful) twist, Erik’s dream to become an orchestra pianist/conductor comes true while he serves in the Army during the Korean conflict, via yet another change of identity. Though duVal’s incredibly intricate plotting and frequent narrative shifts require close reading to follow, his loving concern for even the most troubled of his characters and their twisted relationships are the real payoff; Galena may be a manipulative harridan, but she’s a fascinating wreck whose every action enthralls. And son Erik could charm the pants off, well, anyone he likes.
A rollicking, complex read.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0972594752
Page Count: 524
Publisher: John duVal
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...
A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.
Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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