Barclay's sequel to Broken Promise (2015)—the third book in the series will reveal why the number 23 turns up in all kinds...
During the local drive-in's last-ever triple feature, a mysterious explosion topples the screen, killing four people. It's not the only bizarre incident shaking up the New York town of Promise Falls, a popular suicide spot where all lives seem at risk.
A few hours after the drive-in disaster, which some locals insist was an act of terrorism—bad news for Egyptian-born bookstore owner Naman Safar—someone breaks into the home of one of the victims and steals revealing DVDs from a hidden sex lair. Police Detective Barry Duckworth already has his hands full with a series of seemingly related killings of young women. PI Cal Weaver, who is trying to get over the murders of his wife and son, is busy protecting Samantha, a laundromat owner whose ex-husband is serving time for a bank stickup. David Harwood, a former journalist reluctantly working for loathsome former mayor Randall Finley, has to explain to his son why his late mother killed a man and cut off his hand. Though Samantha is a Philip Roth fan, Barclay's dark and dizzy tour de force is like a Richard Russo novel gone off the rails. Its blue-collar setting is a bottomless pit of nefarious acts including baby theft and kidnapping. The only true innocent is Crystal, a girl with special abilities whose capacity for living inside her head must be regarded as a gift.
Barclay's sequel to Broken Promise (2015)—the third book in the series will reveal why the number 23 turns up in all kinds of bad situations here—trades in thrills for black humor. But it's a crowd-pleaser nonetheless from one of the most reliable craftsmen in crime fiction.Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-47270-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: New American Library
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
PROFILES
Although the pace of this intricate tale is necessarily slow, the investigation and its ultimate destination are gripping.
An investigation into an 11-year-old murder unearths some surprising revelations in Inspector Ian Rutledge’s 21st case (The Gate Keeper, 2018, etc.).
Rutledge survived World War I shellshocked and living with the ghostly voice of Hamish, a comrade who died in his arms. When he helps a former soldier find his wife, the grateful man gives him a tip that might help Rutledge find one of the most wanted men in Britain, Alan Barrington, who was accused of murder over a decade earlier and hasn't been seen since. Rutledge's boss gives him the unwelcome job of following up the clue, which begins the inspector's unrelenting search for the truth. Barrington had been accused of engineering a motor crash that killed Blanche Thorne and gravely injured her second husband, Harold Fletcher-Munro. Barrington had been positive that Fletcher-Munro drove Barrington’s friend Mark Thorne to financial ruin and suicide so he could marry Blanche. Rutledge starts out by investigating Barrington’s friends, including his lawyer and estate agent, both of whom have known him for years. When each refuses to confirm or deny that he’s still alive, Rutledge begins to consider the possibility that Mark Thorne did not commit suicide but was murdered by one of the several men who wanted Blanche. Conversations with friends and relatives of the parties involved with Blanche reveal many conflicting opinions. Each snippet Rutledge gleans leads him deeper into a complex maze, but he never considers giving up even when his own wartime demons come to the fore.
Although the pace of this intricate tale is necessarily slow, the investigation and its ultimate destination are gripping.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-267874-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
A thriller that fails when it turns to the supernatural.
A Harvard freshman investigates the suicide of her schizophrenic brother and finds herself chasing a conspiracy and hearing the voices of the dead.
Cady Archer is determined to attend Harvard even though her beloved older brother, Eric, killed himself there. Considered a genius in math and science, Eric suffered from schizophrenia but had stopped taking his prescriptions, and his yearlong mental health spiral into paranoia and delusion still haunts Cady and her parents. Cady is attending Harvard against her mother’s wishes, but she’s driven by a need to understand what happened the night Eric died. Her quest leads her to a handsome, seductive friend of Eric’s, the professor with whom he was working on a secret project, and something more troubling: voices in her head. Is Cady suffering from schizophrenia, too? Or are the voices she’s hearing truly ghosts, real people who once lived on the Harvard campus and faced their own dilemmas there? The question of Cady’s mental health is interesting, and Serritella—best known for the essay collections she writes with her mother, thriller writer Lisa Scottoline (I See Life Through Rosé-Colored Glasses, 2018, etc.)—brings the famous campus to life in a vivid way. She also effectively explores the aftermath of loss and grief on a family. But Serritella is on shaky ground once the story veers into the supernatural. Cady’s conversations with the ghosts are tiresome and ultimately don’t add much to the narrative. In fact, they detract from what could have been a solid psychological thriller. Her conversations with Bilhah, a slave who is terrified her son will be sold away from her, feel uncomfortably like pandering. The book is repetitive and far too long, and though the endgame strives to shock readers with twists, it's ultimately unsatisfying.
A thriller that fails when it turns to the supernatural.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-51036-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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