A psychological thriller about an enigmatic killer that’s both inventive and unflinching.
A man struggles to manage the dark trauma of his youth, and the havoc it continues to wreak on his adulthood.
When James Davis was a young teen, he suffered under the abusive tyranny of his father, Frank, an irredeemable alcoholic. James’ father eventually turned his anger toward his wife, Brenda, and he finally killed her in a fit of rage. But then a mysterious man charged into the house and strangled Frank to death. James’ rescuer, Alistair, demanded that his part in the tragic affair be kept a secret, and the teen obliged. Years later, James is lost in shiftless ennui, stuck in a dead-end job, and utterly alone. He finally makes a friend at the gym, Mark, who convinces him to see a therapist, the young and beautiful Natalie Pruitt. For the first time in years, James feels a tinge of hope that he might be able to turn his life around, and find a sliver of animating purpose. But then, Alistair inexplicably shows up, and aggressively inserts himself into James’ life. It’s not clear whether Alistair intends to help James repair his broken existence out of some avuncular impulse, or use him as an instrument for his own twisted ends: “Because of a moment in time of their shared past, Alistair was a part of him, for better or worse, and James knew he would never truly be free.” But James is scared for his life, and for the lives of those close to him, as suddenly there seems to be a killer at large in this previously sleepy Maryland suburb. Debut author Logsdon adeptly captures James’ troubled childhood, intermittently flashing back to scenes from it, while also including narrative vignettes depicting the volatile relationship between his parents. At one point, the young James muses about Frank’s cruelty: “The man knew how to make his verbal assaults cut like a knife,” right in Brenda’s “most vulnerable places.” This is a sepulcher tale, and squeamish readers may struggle with some of the grim details, vividly conveyed, about abuse and murder. But the author slowly, chillingly leads readers to a suspenseful conclusion that makes some forbearance of the book’s gloomier aspects well worth it. This is an unpredictable and heart-pounding mystery.
A psychological thriller about an enigmatic killer that’s both inventive and unflinching.Pub Date: May 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5307-7652-8
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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