Second-novelist Smolens (Cold, 2001) is especially deft at capturing the rhythms of small-town life and the complexity of...
Three wounded souls are locked in a love triangle that grows increasingly complicated.
When Chicago native Martin Reed gets a modest inheritance from his aunt Alice, he uses the money to buy a dilapidated house in remote Whitefish Harbor, on Michigan’s rugged Upper Peninsula, a place that, from the time he was very young, has filled Martin’s head with mythical stories. He finds practical and emotional support in his new home from salty older cousin Joseph Pearl Blankenship, a.k.a. Pearly. Then a casual friendship with high-school senior Hannah LeClaire blossoms into romance, even though Martin is a decade the older. The previous year, after Hannah became pregnant by longtime boyfriend Sean Colby and had an abortion, Sean joined the Army and headed overseas. Now, some unspecified trouble in Italy (made progressively clearer to the reader via shortcuts sprinkled throughout the narrative) has led to his abrupt discharge and return home. Volatile and depressed, Sean expects to pick up where he left off with Hannah, and he goes over the edge when he learns of Hannah and Martin’s relationship. His father Frank, a local police officer, gets him a summer police job, which Sean uses to begin an escalating campaign of harassment against Martin. When Frank gets into trouble with the city because of Sean’s actions, he turns on his son, throwing him out of the house and sending him further into a tailspin. Sean moves in with oldest friend Arnie, who runs a gas station, but they soon fall out as well. Matters come to a head when Martin suffers a near-fatal attack at Sean’s hands that leaves him with serious head injuries and no memory. Everyone involved grimly understands that matters can only end badly.
Second-novelist Smolens (Cold, 2001) is especially deft at capturing the rhythms of small-town life and the complexity of his “ordinary” people. Incisive portraits of town denizens add texture.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-609-61104-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Shaye Areheart/Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
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. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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