The authors hit this one out of the park; a highly recommended mystery.
In this debut Chicago-set crime novel, police nickname a brutal serial killer Slugger because he beats his victims with a “bat-like weapon” and leaves a folded, collectible baseball card.
Slugger preys on hookers on the South Side of the city. Detective Kyle McNally and his longtime partner, Sam Weller, investigate the third murdered woman found in Canarytown, “the tavern district of south-central Chicago.” Looking for a lead, Kyle reaches out to informant Eddie Caffey, who “could smell a U.S. Grant from a block away.” But Eddie’s now skittish to talk because he says he saw another informant take a bullet to the head by a dirty cop whose identity isn’t clear. Splotchy-faced Cmdr. Alfred “Al” Rouse, with a broad nose featuring “a small vertical cleft that reminded Kyle of a miniature woman’s ass,” pressures the detective to solve the serial killer case. When another mangled corpse is found, Kyle visits the morgue to talk to the stone-faced but shapely legged county medical examiner, Dr. Mykel Hartley, about the time of death and the mutilation of the body. If it’s the same murderer, he broke from his modus operandi in several ways, including placing the victim in a cemetery far from Canarytown. Detective Liz Dumont—a petite, dedicated “dynamo” who’s “easy on the eyes, too”—mulls if there could be a copycat killer. McCullough and Boydston get a lot of credit for not portraying Kyle as the flawless hunk on the force. Although described as handsome, with a “body that looked well-tended,” he can be impatient and short-tempered. The divorced bourbon drinker doesn’t look for love, but it’s enjoyable—and not overdone—when he finds it. More sensitive readers may balk at the descriptions of mutilated bodies. But fans of gritty crime stories and methodical police work will find the book a page-turner, complete with notable characters, dialogue, and descriptions (“He guessed her at six foot two and skinny as a Ball Park frank”). Names and depictions of Chicago attractions and streets are accurate, with the exception that Canarytown is most likely a stand-in for Canaryville, a community on the city’s South Side that was originally a largely Irish neighborhood.
The authors hit this one out of the park; a highly recommended mystery.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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