Unconvincing.
A squatter with an axe to grind throws one woman’s life into a tailspin.
Not many folks would be thrilled to come home after a four-day work retreat to find their locks changed and some creepy guy living in their house, and Kimber Hannon certainly isn't when it happens to her. The strangely familiar man calls himself Lance Wilson and claims that Kimber herself rented the house to him for six months. When she calls the police, she's horrified that they don’t kick the guy out even after she presents her driver’s license with the address on it and her neighbor, the elderly, very nosy Jenny, confirms that she lives there. So, she calls the only person she can think of who might help her: her lawyer ex-boyfriend, Gabriel, whom she did not leave on good terms. Rather improbably, the police claim that Wilson has “established residence” and they can’t kick him out unless they can prove fraud. Kimber, understandably, loses it and attacks Wilson, and during the scuffle he says “I was there. I saw what you did," so softly that only she can hear. Kimber goes to stay with friend Diana and her husband, Kyle (with whom Kimber has history), and, as her life unravels, she tries to figure out why, and how, this creeper has taken over her home. The truth leads all the way back to Kimber’s childhood and the death of her sister, Michelle, when they were kids. Kimber is no saint, but although she’s genuinely trying to be a better person, the carefully woven threads of her life are unraveling at an alarming pace. Readers may not exactly root for Kimber, but it’s hard not to sympathize with the helplessness and rage she feels at the general unfairness of her home and life being taken over by a smug, smarmy intruder. Benedict also provides a window into Kimber’s combative relationship with her sister and the tragic events leading up to Michelle’s death. Benedict is an able writer, but readers will likely guess who Kimber’s unwanted house guest is quickly, and the big reveals (there are a few) and final confrontation, orchestrated to be shocking, merely expose the frayed ends of this melodramatic tale.
Unconvincing.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-44492-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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