A quirky, satisfying mystery that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment.
While searching for stolen artwork, an investigator uncovers a possible murder and political conspiracy in Freemartin’s enjoyable sci-fi mystery debut.
On an Earth-like planet called Astrogea, people are tattooed at birth with their zodiac signs, which dictate how they look, where they live and with whom they associate. This categorization has resulted in some hostilities between people of different signs or groups of signs, but no one is more disdained than the Cuspians—those born between signs who don’t strongly identify with either. Astrogean private investigator Margo Ramm is summoned by Dermot Justice, a wealthy, ailing politician, to find some priceless pieces of art that have gone missing from his home. Margo arrives to find his vast villa full of potential suspects: Justice’s ill-tempered second wife; his stern personal physician; his self-important business partner and the partner’s supermodel daughter; a niece and nephew with checkered pasts; and the musician husband of Justice’s deceased daughter. As Margo investigates, she begins to doubt the houseguests’ supposed concern for Justice’s health. She also finds that there may have been greater crimes committed than art theft—perhaps even a murder. Imperfect and likable, Margo was abandoned at birth and raised in an orphanage, as many Cuspians are in this world. She suffers from bouts of self-doubt but proves to be strong, intelligent and capable. The odd cast of suspects adds to the tension as their shifting loyalties make it difficult to point out the guilty party. Plot twists and unanswered questions abound while the story builds to an action-packed climax in which all the characters are brought together at once. At the end of this volume, the first in a planned series, the author strikes just the right balance, with the threads of the primary mysteries sewn up but one unsolved mystery lingering amid hints of growing political and social unrest in Astrogea. Undoubtedly, there’s room to explore some intriguing stories in future volumes.
A quirky, satisfying mystery that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 231
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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