The gritty Vietnam section constitutes a rewarding novella itself, and King’s shrewd use of it as the seminal period in the...
A gripping, intricately plotted psychological thriller, full of subtle twists.
Allen Carmichael (a minor character from King’s Folly, 2001) works outside the law as a “kidnapper,” abducting abused children and, with the help of an underground network run by an enigmatic woman named Alice, placing them with complicit foster families. Just as you’re absorbing this scenario, the story flashes back to Allen’s harrowing tenure in Vietnam. During his yearlong hitch, he witnesses the brutal killing or maiming of all his buddies. After discharge, there’s a period of homelessness, a failed marriage, and a series of unsuccessful jobs before he finds salvation helping at-risk kids. He also reunites with brother Jerry (a sheriff) and builds a romantic relationship with a sea-loving woman named Rae (a central figure in Folly), aboard her boat, the Orca Queen. On the brink of retirement, Allen is drawn into one last case, a sensitive and dangerous one. Twelve-year-old Jamie O’Connell, a computer fanatic, suffers physical and emotional torture at the hands of his charismatic father Mark, a high-powered southern California entrepreneur. Jamie’s early years were studded with tragedy: the suicide of his mother, the drowning of a friend, a raging fire at his school. He escapes to the Internet, where his handle is Deadboy. Allen abducts Jamie with nary a hitch, taking him to Montana and the farm of Peter and Rachel Johnson. Jamie’s progress with the Johnsons is slow but steady, and Allen, meanwhile, digs into Jamie’s early years and Mark’s elusive business: and uncovers myriad disturbing facts that force him to postpone his retirement and return to Montana—before it’s too late.
The gritty Vietnam section constitutes a rewarding novella itself, and King’s shrewd use of it as the seminal period in the hero’s life gives a devastating and surprising spin to a familiar genre. And there’s more: multidimensional characters at every level and complex plotting earn the true application of that overused tag psychological thriller.Pub Date: March 4, 2003
ISBN: 0-553-80191-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Solid, satisfying thriller from the prolific Brown (Ricochet, 2006 etc.).
Fallen gridiron great, fresh out of prison, reluctantly agrees to impregnate the wife of a disabled millionaire.
After doing five years for throwing a game to settle a gambling debt with a crime syndicate, former Dallas Cowboy Griff Burkett knows his employment options are limited. A social pariah, the one-time hero quarterback is despised by the very public that once worshipped him. Still, he understandably balks when wheelchair-bound airline mogul Foster Speakman taps the ex-con for a most indecent proposal: knock-up his wife Laura; keep the baby’s real paternity a secret; walk away with millions. The gig sounds too good to be true, and the fact that Speakman insists on a “natural” conception rather than artificial means that something is not quite right. For his part, Griff does need the money, and Mrs. Speakman, while not exactly his usual type, is certainly easy on the eyes. The two have several meetings, and devoted wife Laura immediately finds herself torn with guilt over the infidelity, but also stirred by the feelings hunky Griff brings out in her. Meanwhile, Griff is being tailed by Detective Rodarte, a twisted cop who will stop at nothing (rape, murder) to see Griff back in jail or dead. After an especially passionate interlude with Griff, Laura conceives, but her joy is short-lived as her husband meets a sudden grisly end, with Griff implicated in his death. Griff is then forced to go on the run to find a witness to clear his name—before Rodarte does. He abducts the only slightly unwilling Laura to aid him in his plan, and is amazed when he realizes that staying off death row doesn’t seem to matter as much as protecting her and their unborn child. He’s a changed man, and Griff and Laura’s psychologically complex grown-up relationship is a pleasant surprise that sets the stage for the bloody finish.
Solid, satisfying thriller from the prolific Brown (Ricochet, 2006 etc.).Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-8935-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
Hoag finishes her crossover from sexy soft-cover romance to psychosexual thriller with this tale of tough Cajun loners looking for love in unlikely places. Heroine Annie Broussard is a deputy with the sheriff's office in Partout Parish in southern Louisiana. An orphan who's working hard to make detective, she's also devoted to getting rid of the sexual predators who victimize women. But just as her career seems to be looking up, Annie breaks an unwritten police law: She arrests a fellow officer, Nick Fourcade, when she finds him beating up a murder suspect. Annie should have let Fourcade kill him, say both her colleagues and the bayou parish citizens. After all, the suspect, Marcus Renard, had supposedly stalked Pam Bichon, a single mother. He'd driven stakes through her hands, raped her, killed her, eviscerated her, then left her wearing only a feathered Mardi Gras mask in a deserted cottage on Pony Bayou. Why not kill him? Switching his obsession from Pam to Annie, he maintains that he's innocent and begs Annie to help him. Working with Fourcade, who's suspended but still obsessed with the case, she seeks evidence to put the troubled Marcus legally behind bars. Meanwhile, someone's raping Louisiana women, and Marcus is too injured to be the perp. Is it Annie's lazy, mean-spirited colleague Stokes? Or Pam's husband, involved with a New Orleans racketeer from Fourcade's past? As Mardi Gras approaches, Annie, a cute kid who does 50 chin-ups a day and has an addiction to candy bars, wrestles with Fourcade's dangerous sexuality—fortunately a losing battle—and with the evil presence of deranged male predators that haunts so many recent suspense novels. Hoag (Guilty as Sin, 1996, etc.) is always a good gritty read, but this time a lack of sustained emotional tension makes the novel a long ride on soft tires.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-553-09960-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
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