The erratic Mr. Sanders is at his tackiest here, hyping up this slow tale out of two borrowed, stale formulas. The plot formula is the old horror-movie one about the (secretly) mad scientist with the outwardly respectable laboratory-hospital in a scared, creepy little town. And the formula narrator-hero is our old friend, the hard-boiled detective, here in the uninspired person of Sam Todd, 32, field investigator for the Bingham Foundation—and weak imitator of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer. Sam is assigned to get the inside story on Dr. T. G. Thorndecker, Nobel Prize winner, who wants a million-dollar Bingham grant to study the cause of aging in mammalian cells (or so he says). Thorndecker runs a lush rest home and adjoining research lab in upstate N.Y., so Sam is soon trying to get some gossip from the locals—who, except for old Al Coburn, have nothing but praise for dear Dr. T. And, though Sam's real suspicious, convinced that there are secrets a-lurking, he succumbs somewhat to Dr. T.'s incredible charisma—not to mention the charisma of the doc's sexy young wife (who's playing around with a local cop and others). But then Sam spots a patient being buried at midnight (yes, that old scene) and old Al Colburn turns up dead—so a late-night raid on the lab seems to be the only way to learn the truth. And as usual, the truth isn't shocking enough to warrant all that build-up; plus, in this case, it's medically unconvincing. Although Sanders pads like crazy—with Sam repeating his suspicions over and over, as well as with some divertingly vulgar sideshows—it's always apparent that this is a moderately lively genre pulp (far less fully developed than the author's Deadly Sin crime stories) masquerading as a best-seller. If not for the Sanders by-line, it wouldn't have a prayer.
Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1978
ISBN: 0425104303
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1978
A grim and unbearably tense debut chiller with an unexpected and utterly fitting finale.
A lonely British schoolteacher falls for an American man incarcerated for the murder of a young woman. What could possibly go wrong?
Samantha, 31, is still reeling from a bad breakup when she discovers Framing the Truth: The Murder of Holly Michaels, an 18-year-old true-crime documentary about the killing of a young girl by then-18-year-old Dennis Danson, aka the suspected Red River Killer, who’s still on death row in Florida’s Altoona Prison. Sam writes to Dennis, and soon they’re declaring their love for each other. Sam flies to the U.S. to meet him, and although they’re separated by plexiglass, she knows that she’s found the love of her life. The chirpy Carrie, who co-produced and directed the first documentary, is Sam’s guide while she’s there, and Sam accompanies her while they film a new series about Dennis, A Boy from Red River. Sam and Dennis quickly marry when new evidence comes to light and Dennis is exonerated and released. Amid a whirlwind of talk shows, celebrity attention, and the new series premiere, married life isn’t quite what Sam had hoped for: intimacy is nonexistent, the already self-loathing Sam feels unloved and unwanted, and the appearance of Dennis’ clingy childhood friend Lindsay Durst sends Sam into a jealous fit. After Dennis’ father dies, they move into Dennis’ childhood home, and Sam begins to suspect he may be hiding something. After all, what actually happened to all those other missing girls? Refreshingly, Lloyd seems absolutely unconcerned with whether or not her characters are likable, and although a few British sayings ("round," “in hospital”) make their way into the dialogue of the American characters, her research into the aftereffects of long incarceration is obvious, and her portrait of an emotionally damaged woman feels spot-on.
A grim and unbearably tense debut chiller with an unexpected and utterly fitting finale.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-335-95240-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
A compulsively readable account of a little-known yet extraordinary historical figure—Lawhon’s best book to date.
A historical novel explores the intersection of love and war in the life of Australian-born World War II heroine Nancy Grace Augusta Wake.
Lawhon’s (I Was Anastasia, 2018, etc.) carefully researched, lively historical novels tend to be founded on a strategic chronological gambit, whether it’s the suspenseful countdown to the landing of the Hindenberg or the tale of a Romanov princess told backward and forward at once. In her fourth novel, she splits the story of the amazing Nancy Wake, woman of many aliases, into two interwoven strands, both told in first-person present. One begins on Feb. 29th, 1944, when Wake, code-named Hélène by the British Special Operations Executive, parachutes into Vichy-controlled France to aid the troops of the Resistance, working with comrades “Hubert” and “Denden”—two of many vividly drawn supporting characters. “I wake just before dawn with a full bladder and the uncomfortable realization that I am surrounded on all sides by two hundred sex-starved Frenchmen,” she says. The second strand starts eight years earlier in Paris, where Wake is launching a career as a freelance journalist, covering early stories of the Nazi rise and learning to drink with the hardcore journos, her purse-pooch Picon in her lap. Though she claims the dog “will be the great love of [her] life,” she is about to meet the hunky Marseille-based industrialist Henri Fiocca, whose dashing courtship involves French 75 cocktails, unexpected appearances, and a drawn-out seduction. As always when going into battle, even the ones with guns and grenades, Nancy says “I wear my favorite armor…red lipstick.” Both strands offer plenty of fireworks and heroism as they converge to explain all. The author begs forgiveness in an informative afterword for all the drinking and swearing. Hey! No apologies necessary!
A compulsively readable account of a little-known yet extraordinary historical figure—Lawhon’s best book to date.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-385-54468-9
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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