A somber and disquieting portrayal of human frailties and familial disconnection.
In Dwyer’s debut novel, a series of teenagers’ deaths brings about crises in the lives of a high school senior gridiron star and his deeply religious mother.
Forty-six-year-old Anne Norrisis a devoutly Catholic homemaker. Her husband, Dane, is a retired NFL star, and their sons, Dylan and Janus, are entering their senior and freshman years (respectively) at St. Ambrose High School in Asheville, North Carolina. Dylan, in particular, is highly sought by Division I college football recruiters. The boys’ rebellious, partying older sister, Maryanne, is estranged from their parents, so Anne has become overprotective of her sons to the point of driving Dylan away. After several St. Ambrose students are killed over the summer—four by accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, two due to reckless driving, one by suicide, and one from fentanyl-laced cocaine—a sense of dread descends on the community. Anne feels increasingly helpless, especially because Dane has embraced a hands-off parenting style. Dylan, with a sunny future laid out for him, experiments with drugs and meaningless sexual liaisons, which eventually draws unwelcome attention. Anne, meanwhile, commits a desperate act that cuts to the heart of her faith and marriage. Dwyer writes in the omniscient past tense, employing a flowing prose style that ably establishes people and places. The characters are distinct and memorable, and their personalities emerge organically from the story. The point of the novel is difficult to pin down: Is it about college football recruiting? Parent/teen relationships? Religion? Identity? Is there a supernatural element to the deaths? The result is an intricately themed, rather grim depiction of how human flaws can bring about tragedy. The work has an elegiacal sense of happier times fading, and the intrusion of a changing world upon Asheville is cleverly personified through Dane and Dylan, who represent similar figures in different generations. Although the narrative develops slowly, with lengthy backstories and too-long discourses on football and religion, readers willing to immerse themselves will be rewarded.
A somber and disquieting portrayal of human frailties and familial disconnection.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2022
ISBN: 979-8986400709
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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