A work that casts a fitfully eerie spell despite an often meandering narrative.
A mysterious Trinidadian secret society helps those on the fringes of society in Peter’s paranormal thriller.
A midnight funeral ceremony offers readers entry into the shadowy underworld of the Blue Devils, a cultish group led by a man known as Bishop, who describes it as an organization that “simply uses or, rather, capitalizes on corruption to help the poor” in the area. It also provides a haven for outcasts: “They are made to feel like royalty,” a woman named Priestess explains at one point. “In our world, we are all royalty. It’s a camaraderie that’s stronger than any bond.” The funeral proceedings are interrupted by police inspector David Randolph, who’s new to western Trinidad but whose reputation for greed and corruption precede him. Bishop is also aware that the inspector’s granddaughter is gravely ill and needs an expensive operation that, even with his ill-gotten gains, Randolph can’t possibly afford. So Bishop, seeing Randolph as potentially useful, makes him an offer of $500,000; “It’s not a gift,” Bishop tells him. “It’s for our mutual benefit.” Peter’s debut sets up an intriguing conflict between Bishop, who has supernatural abilities, and Randolph that has the potential for cat-and-mouse drama but then unaccountably cuts if off in the early going. What remains is, as one character describes, “a long winding story” that’s sporadically compelling but has a tendency toward digression. Bishop is a formidable, if improbable, character with a tortured background on the streets, and Deodath Ramsingh is revealed as a corrupt defense lawyer with whom Bishop has been in a near-lifelong adversarial, although mutually beneficial, relationship. Along the way, the story shows how Bishop juggles relationships with the Syrian Mafia and other outfits whose executives are involved in nefarious financial schemes. “I don’t have to explain anything to you,” Bishop tells one character, but a clearer, cleaner narrative would have gone a long way toward making the narrative easier to follow. That said, the author does effectively detail palpably spooky scenes inside the Blue Devils, particularly in the novel’s early going.
A work that casts a fitfully eerie spell despite an often meandering narrative.Pub Date: March 16, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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