A monster tale brimming with frights, suspense, and gore.
In this debut thriller/horror novel, a massive creature with a seemingly insatiable hunger terrorizes citizens in a small Canadian town.
Christine Moon, the new conservation officer in Lawless, British Columbia, has an unusual case of roadkill. Someone apparently hit a raccoon, but the amount of remains on the highway suggests an animal considerably larger. Around the same time, Austin Murphy, the head of road and highway maintenance, and his assistant, Trip Williams, stumble on a campsite showing signs of a bloody massacre. They find a delirious survivor who’s unquestionably scared of something catching him. After Christine and Austin team up to investigate, they decide that whatever attacked the campers was, based on its tracks, a colossal beast. Unfortunately, Lawless’ police chief dismisses their advice to warn the public of an “unknown predator” in the area. Meanwhile, powerful individuals are eying a local cavern, which houses a staggering mass of gold. Acquiring the valuables sparks double-crosses and worse. Since this cavern is in the vicinity of where the ferocious creature came from, there’s a good chance many more people will die. Christine, Austin, and Trip take it upon themselves to track down the beast and stop its murderous spree. Berry’s lengthy novel (over 500 pages) features numerous playful scenes, including ones that spotlight Trip’s unhealthy affinity for crullers. But the author still manages a steady narrative pace, courtesy of a plausible and succinctly detailed creature origin story and copious monster attacks. These are often substantially violent. The more effective scenes feature suspense, with the beast pursuing its prey or struggling to reach someone who’s cramped in a tiny hiding spot. Readers won’t have much sympathy for the victims; they’re callous men greedy for gold or barely known citizens who are merely creature fodder. Nevertheless, Christine, Austin, and Trip are appealing characters whose inevitable peril heightens the story’s intensity.
A monster tale brimming with frights, suspense, and gore. (acknowledgements, preface)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-71286-786-0
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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