A complex series continuation that’s challenging but often gripping.
This second entry in Carlisle’s “What Happened to Mia Davis?” series delves further into the details of an ongoing murder mystery.
The author’s follow-up to her series debut, Reasonable (2023), backtracks to years before Elaine Reid’s death in North Carolina in 2023, and her former best friend Cat Clark’s arrest and indictment for the crime. Effectively narrating from the three first-person perspectives of central characters Elaine, Cat, and police detective Rachel McGowen, the book fills in the details of Elaine’s murder, beginning by highlighting the victim, the killer, and the former best friend caught in the middle. As Elaine’s body floats above the carnage, she becomes a spectral spirit who must now attempt to resolve the crime from beyond. The novel sketches in Elaine’s history in 2007 and 2008, during her Green Valley University collegiate days, when she dated moody boyfriend Evan Summers. When she met his caustic family, they were a shocking contrast to her own affluent upbringing. For his 20th birthday in 2007, she got him a fake ID, using the name and face of someone from a 1950s class yearbook. Other chapters detail Elaine’s formerly close friendship with Cat and the latter’s struggle with alcoholism. Readers also learn about how her classmate Mia Davis and then-frat boy Tim Clark came into the picture, with the latter eventually becoming Cat’s husband. As Carlisle weaves more strands into the plot’s tangled tapestry, readers may have trouble keeping track of them all. Although the book’s pacing is snappy throughout, the timeline jumps between the present and past frenetically—moving from the misinterpreted crime scene, where ghostly, invisible Elaine works to communicate with Cat, to Elaine and Cat’s earlier assessments of love’s jealousies and pains. Finally, the story dives into Green Valley detective McGowen’s diligent, superlative policework, which unearths a string of other deaths. Carlisle fits all the puzzle pieces together with a deft hand yet still makes room for a thrilling cliffhanger, which leads into the trilogy’s planned final installment.
A complex series continuation that’s challenging but often gripping.Pub Date: May 13, 2024
ISBN: 9798869160461
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
