Crisp prose and a savvy protagonist accentuate a smart and unpretentious genre tale.
In this debut crime novel, a Korean War veteran moonlighting as a bank robber in 1950s New York mingles with vicious hoodlums, the consequence of romancing a mob boss’ ex-wife.
Former Marine Tom Decker doesn’t care for wealthy types. More specifically, the Smiths, who years ago swindled his father, crushed by the Depression, out of Decker’s Hardware. Back from the war, Decker now works for Frank Smith in the store’s paint department. He plans on buying back the family business, having accumulated a pile of cash from stickups he’s been pulling off with partner-in-crime Mitch O’Neill. Things take an unwelcome turn, however, when Irene McKenna walks into Decker’s department. They’ve already hit it off when he learns that Irene is the ex-wife of Enzo Fiori, don of a local mob family. Decker figures the easiest route is to plead his case for dating Irene to currently incarcerated Fiori. But the gangster has details of one of Decker’s recent heists and, in exchange for keeping the particulars of the thief’s criminal activities from Irene, wants part of the loot. Moreover, Fiori enlists Decker’s and O’Neill’s help for another robbery and an even bigger score. Trusting Fiori’s goons doesn’t seem feasible, and getting away intact will require a good deal of luck. Roberts’ pleasantly old-fashioned caper boasts tough-guy vernacular in dialogue and first-person narration. Decker, for example, after taking down a thug menacingly poking his chest with cigar-holding fingers, says: “You ought to be careful where you point that stogie, pal.” He’s nevertheless appealing; his reason for stealing is, at the very least, selfless (reclaim his father’s store), and he’s sweet on winsome co-worker Dottie Gibbs. Roberts further contrasts Decker with his mentor, O’Neill, a true hardened criminal; during one heist, O’Neill dons a Wolf Man mask while Decker portrays Howdy Doody. Perhaps not surprisingly, Fiori’s theft doesn’t go as planned, and Decker’s ensuing scramble is nothing short of exhilarating, including deaths and a double cross or two.
Crisp prose and a savvy protagonist accentuate a smart and unpretentious genre tale.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-945181-01-6
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Moonshine Cove Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2017
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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