A gripping, titillating amalgam of provocative, interpersonal melodrama and effective noir thriller.
A debut suspense novel charts the disappearance of a disenchanted former wife and the slow reveal of her furtive, fetishized sex life.
Jenson’s dynamic tale chronicles the troubled marriage of Paul and Deliah, a six-year union that has pretty much run its course. Sexually, Paul, nearly 30 years old and a self-described “vanilla boy of supreme proportions,” has been rigidly faithful and more than willing to please his struggling actor wife. But Deliah’s orgasms have always been a rarity and leave her unsatisfied and her husband feeling inadequate. Finally, she decides she’s had enough and leaves Paul via a kitchen-counter Post-it, and their life together in Southern California dissolves in a swirl of divorce papers. Abandoning his video game designing job, Paul sells his condo, buys an RV, and becomes obsessed with finding Deliah through a complex, mysterious labyrinth of whispered leads and tips; extramarital adventures; secret histories; and hidden pasts. There’s also plenty of action in a series of warehouse sex clubs where bondage rituals increase in intensity, which lends the story a kind of graphic, raunchy edge of fetish erotica. Paul tries to extract answers from John Laster, the last individual to personally interact with Deliah. But John delivers tragic news and further ignites Paul’s determination to avenge his ex-wife’s disappearance. Soon, a slinky submissive named Alex appears on the scene and is immediately thrust into a “slave” role, dutifully pleasuring Paul, whom she refers to as her new “Master.” It becomes a part Paul eventually makes peace with and ultimately relishes as his attraction to Alex deepens and she feels comfortable enough to reveal her identity as transgender. A strong undercurrent of vigilante justice, sex trafficking, rape, and abuse runs beneath the tale and shows Paul to have become quite a formidable presence when compared with the man he once was as Deliah’s husband.
Though at times the prose is overly stylized—a deceived Paul laments that “all my accumulated knowledge had been distorted and manipulated, baked in the oven of delusion”—the narrative remains unapologetic for its sheer sense of bawdy sexuality and an unrestrained depiction of BDSM master and submissive play in “full bondage regalia.” The disorienting surprise and confusion when attempting to understand a loved one who turns out to have a secret life are also handled with realistic frenzy, apprehension, understandable anger, and just a touch of suspense. The story is further energized by the main character’s realistic and unrehearsed dialogue, believable actions toward finding his ex-wife, and his slowly revealed, abusive childhood. The dark novel succeeds on several levels. As an erotic thriller, it includes lots of vividly aggressive, sexually explicit details of both the fetish clubs’ scenes and Paul’s lovemaking with Alex. And as a noir suspense novel/mystery, it features a well-paced plot and a simmering momentum. As the protagonist, Paul is believable as a desperate man eager to rekindle his marriage to a gorgeous woman who is clearly out of his league. He is a character who becomes increasingly self-aware as the story progresses, discovering more and more about himself as a man, a former husband, and a sexual being in ways he’d never imagined.
A gripping, titillating amalgam of provocative, interpersonal melodrama and effective noir thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9651190-7-8
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Furthest Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
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 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
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