A meticulously plotted tale, headlined by two praiseworthy protagonists.
An Australian writer’s fictional account of a serial killer catches the attention of a genuine murderer in De Michiel’s (Orchestrated Fate, 2013, etc.) thriller.
Jake Petersen is taken aback when retired cop Cary Layter shows up at his door asking for the source for his latest serial-killer story in Crime of Fashion magazine. It turns out that Jake made up the tale, but Cary has found parallels to his own 14-year-old daughter’s abduction two decades ago—including her name, Josie. Someone took her from her home and likely kidnapped other girls as well. Jake assures Cary that his upcoming story installment, which will reveal where the bodies are buried, is pure fiction. However, a real-life killer has also noticed Jake’s article and given him a couple of warnings, including an axe in his door and a phone call saying he saw Jake at his restaurant gig. Jake and Cary come to believe that a body or two may really be buried at a public park. The killer, meanwhile, amps up his threats, creeping into Cary’s home and trailing Jake’s girlfriend, Savina Carabini. Worst of all, the rate of his murders has accelerated. De Michiel abandons the mystery by revealing the killer’s identity early on, but he still delivers a stark procedural that shows the painstaking detail of proving that someone’s a murderer. The novel’s nuanced plot developments make it stand out; for example, Cary gets an assist from DS Fayne Breitling, who later becomes his love interest, and Savina is revealed to be the daughter of an infamous Italian crime boss. There’s also subtle humor, as when Savina repeatedly calls the killer “the axe murderer,” based solely on the bladed tool he left in the door. Cary is a licensed PI, but De Michiel ensures that amateur gumshoe Jake has razor-sharp dialogue at the ready, as when he responds to a cop’s dig about “playing detectives”: “Somebody has to.” In the end, the story resolves with a bit of a twist.
A meticulously plotted tale, headlined by two praiseworthy protagonists.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9872200-4-2
Page Count: 394
Publisher: Lindenfels Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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