A relatively restrained, old-style yarn of supernatural retribution and redemption that may leave gore-hounds feeling a bit...
A batch of shirts bearing deadly serpents, obtained unethically by a shady businessman, spawns terror at a retailer convention in New Orleans.
In his supernatural novel, Hadley (Origins, 2015) introduces Alex “Jensen” McIntyre, a Northern businessman headed for a retail trade show in New Orleans. By chance, he winds up using a filling station deep in the Louisiana swamps and encounters a Cajun crone named Mothe’ Moses. Despite her remoteness from civilization, she shows Jensen an inexplicable inventory hidden in her hovel—boxes of high-quality cotton shirts emblazoned with frightful, beyond-photorealistic imprints of venomous snakes. Although admonished by Mothe’ Moses not to cheat her with a bad check, Jensen is tempted to do exactly that, and he takes the shirts to his business convention, where they are, naturally, an attention-getter. But, as Mothe’ Moses warned, dire consequences soon ensue, with victims going “into some kind of catatonic state,” appearing dead but eventually showing some “muted signs of life.” The local medics start to suspect some kind of fearful epidemic. But Jensen’s friend and colleague Bob (also arriving in town on business and attempting to restore his cooling marriage) realizes that the cursed garments and Mothe’ Moses spill over from scientific reality into the realm of voodoo mysticism. Unfortunately, this book shares a title with a reality TV show and a handful of B-movies; it’s actually a tastefully wrought paranormal tale with some vivid passages of Louisiana bayou description. Depending on their thirst for mayhem, genre fans may be pleased (or annoyed) that the author refuses to slather the material in shocking bloodshed or Deep South drive-in, horror-flick culture along the lines of regional efforts from Joe R. Lansdale or even Stephen King. One might even characterize the story as a spiritual one (The Shack II: The Revenge, anybody?), except that evangelical intent is not obvious (although moral instruction is). The voodoo element gets handled respectfully rather than pulpishly, and a hint at Mothe’ Moses’ true identity remains a nice touch. But the author’s decision to tell the story using multiple first-person narrators (and all in fairly uniform voices) tends to telegraph the fates of a lot of characters in advance—defanging the suspense, one might say.
A relatively restrained, old-style yarn of supernatural retribution and redemption that may leave gore-hounds feeling a bit disappointed.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-60645-160-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: BookWise Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Laymon moves us dazzlingly (and sometimes bewilderingly) from 1964 to 1985 to 2013 and incorporates themes of prejudice,...
A novel within a novel—hilarious, moving and occasionally dizzying.
Citoyen “City” Coldson is a 14-year-old wunderkind when it comes to crafting sentences. In fact, his only rival is his classmate LaVander Peeler. Although the two don’t get along, they’ve qualified to appear on the national finals of the contest "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence," and each is determined to win. Unfortunately, on the nationally televised show, City is given the word “niggardly” and, to say the least, does not provide a “correct, appropriate or dynamic usage” of the word as the rules require. LaVander similarly blows his chance with the word “chitterlings,” so both are humiliated, City the more so since his appearance is available to all on YouTube. This leads to a confrontation with his grandmother, alas for City, “the greatest whupper in the history of Mississippi whuppings.” Meanwhile, the principal at City’s school has given him a book entitled Long Division. When City begins to read this, he discovers that the main character is named City Coldson, and he’s in love with a Shalaya Crump...but this is in 1985, and the contest finals occurred in 2013. (Laymon is nothing if not contemporary.) A girl named Baize Shephard also appears in the novel City is reading, though in 2013, she has mysteriously disappeared a few weeks before City’s humiliation. Laymon cleverly interweaves his narrative threads and connects characters in surprising and seemingly impossible ways.
Laymon moves us dazzlingly (and sometimes bewilderingly) from 1964 to 1985 to 2013 and incorporates themes of prejudice, confusion and love rooted in an emphatically post-Katrina world.Pub Date: June 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-932841-72-5
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Bolden/Agate
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
