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A buoyant, unrestrained Grand Guignol noir, relishing the journey, indifferent to the destination.

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WHAT WAITS FOR YOU

Name: WHAT WAITS FOR YOU
Author: Joseph Schneider
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8447-3

by Joseph Schneider ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 5, 2021

An abrasive, erudite detective matches wits with an uber-violent serial killer.

When Bill and Joanne Lauterbach's worried daughter is unable to reach them for days, police check out the couple's home. Rookie patrolman Evan Porter and his training supervisor, Sgt. Melissa Banning, find a chaotic, horrific scene. Porter announces cryptically that “the house is bleeding” before going inside, where he’s violently attacked, ending up in the ICU. Banning’s not so lucky. This is the fourth bloody incident involving The Eastside Creeper, a killer believed to spend hours hiding inside other people’s homes before he violently strikes. Nerves in Los Angeles are already frayed because of a massive earthquake a week earlier, and morale at the Hollywood police station is understandably low. Enter sardonic, overeducated LAPD detective Tully Jarsdel, who banters with his partner, Morales, over the killer’s profile. Bureaucratic scrambling comes to the fore as Jarsdel’s taken off the case, then invited onto Hollywood Special, the new unit handling it. Tensions rise even higher after the wife of the lieutenant leading the Special becomes a victim. The road to apprehension is full of detours that accommodate Schneider’s juicy prose and quirky characters. There’s an extended feud with Jarsdel’s increasingly irrational father. And Jarsdel, who left a Ph.D. program in English to join the force, describes the opinions of colleague and possible love interest Alisha Varna as “obelisks of intellectual rigor.”

A buoyant, unrestrained Grand Guignol noir, relishing the journey, indifferent to the destination.

Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-4926-8447-3

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Poisoned Pen

Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020

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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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New York Times Bestseller

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DEVOLUTION

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

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. 10, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

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Light on suspense but still a solid page-turner.

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67

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New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

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THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME

by Laura Dave ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021

When a devoted husband and father disappears, his wife and daughter set out to find him.

Hannah Hall is deeply in love with her husband of one year, Owen Michaels. She’s also determined to win over his 16-year-old daughter, Bailey, who has made it very clear that she’s not thrilled with her new stepmother. Despite the drama, the family is mostly a happy one. They live in a lovely houseboat in Sausalito; Hannah is a woodturner whose handmade furniture brings in high-dollar clientele; and Owen works for The Shop, a successful tech firm. Their lives are shattered, however, when Hannah receives a note saying “Protect her” and can’t reach Owen by phone. Then there’s the bag full of cash Bailey finds in her school locker and the shocking news that The Shop’s CEO has been taken into custody. Hannah learns that the FBI has been investigating the firm for about a year regarding some hot new software they took to market before it was fully functional, falsifying their financial statements. Hannah refuses to believe her husband is involved in the fraud, and a U.S. marshal assigned to the case claims Owen isn’t a suspect. Hannah doesn’t know whom to trust, though, and she and Bailey resolve to root out the clues that might lead to Owen. They must also learn to trust one another. Hannah’s narrative alternates past and present, detailing her early days with Owen alongside her current hunt for him, and author Dave throws in a touch of danger and a few surprises. But what really drives the story is the evolving nature of Hannah and Bailey’s relationship, which is by turns poignant and frustrating but always realistic.

Light on suspense but still a solid page-turner.