A taut thriller with complex characters and an unforgettable villain.
A serial killer’s misguided revenge endangers a Los Angeles homicide detective as well as his loved ones in this third installment of a series.
DS Gabriel McRay knows for certain he’s arrested the Malibu Canyon Murderer. The killer, Victor Archwood, confessed to Gabriel while trying to murder him after burying alive medical examiner Dr. Ming Li. Ming, Gabriel’s girlfriend, fortunately survived. But a lack of hard evidence against Victor and a surprise during his trial mar the chance for a guilty verdict. Gabriel fumes as Victor subsequently wins the public’s approval, seen as a man wrongfully accused. But Victor has his sights set on Gabriel. The two share a past: Gabriel had once been Victor’s babysitter. Young Victor confided in Gabriel that his grandfather was sexually abusing him. But Victor’s mother later convinced her son that Gabriel was the abuser. While Gabriel investigates another case, he periodically spots Victor, who’s clearly keeping an eye on him by following him around LA. It seems Victor has a plan involving Gabriel. While he’s an unmistakable menace to the detective, Victor also poses a threat to Ming and Gabriel’s estranged family, with whom he’s recently tried making amends. Stevens’ (Deep into Dusk, 2013, etc.) dense installment is a skillfully woven tapestry of subplots and character development. Gabriel’s backstory, for example, both gives the protagonist depth and links him to his serial-murderer nemesis. The detective also suffered abuse as a child, which he suppressed for years. Nevertheless, the story remains focused on Victor’s desire for vengeance, which leads to a lengthy, horrifying final act. Remarkable characters, in addition to Gabriel, enrich the narrative: Ming, who isn’t afraid to speak her mind, and Victor, whose diligence makes him a disturbing but memorable killer. Though the author eschews graphic descriptions of violent acts, her crisp prose leaves a lasting impression (“Her deputy coroner…used rib shears to snap the ribs so that Ming could easily lift away the breastplate”).
A taut thriller with complex characters and an unforgettable villain.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9970068-0-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: FYD Media, LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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