Hickmon’s taut, gripping fiction debut journeys into a world of subversive rock-and-roll, dark perversions and deep emotional scars.
The novel opens with a scene of precisely described violence: A man named Andrew opens his front door late at night to find Chris Pesner, his girlfriend’s 14-year-old son. The boy then pepper-sprays him in the eyes, breaks his kneecap with a baseball bat and shoots him dead. The story jolts forward to show Detective William Hursel arriving at the scene of the equally grisly murder of Chris’ mother, and when he examines the boy’s room for clues, he finds lots of memorabilia of the iconoclastic heavy-metal band Rehoboam. Hursel realizes that the boy is devoted to the band, but when he questions Chris’ girlfriend, Gina, she sets him straight on his preconceived ideas: “He isn’t into drugs or devil worship or any of that,” she says. “He listens to Rehoboam because the lyrics are intelligent.” The narrative then follows Rehoboam’s leader, Josh Sebala, who has scars of his own from his harsh upbringing by his strict Baptist preacher father. Although he suffers from nightmares, he knows that he has it good: Rehoboam is a success, and he’s found the love of his life in a girl named Lindsey Leif. But the narrative steadily darkens; Josh gradually loses control of his life, and fugitive Chris gradually enters a dark world of sexual perversion and human trafficking. Through it all, Hursel doggedly moves from crime scene to crime scene in Chris’ wake. Hickmon weaves these separate plots together with an unforced ease, as when he effectively portrays Rehoboam’s struggling early years in well-deployed flashbacks. The narrative’s lean, unadorned prose becomes intensely involving as the plot hastens to its climax and Chris becomes linked in the press with the heavy-metal band he loves so much.
A strange and effective debut novel about the powerful dynamics of father-son relationships and the casual violence of amoral subcultures.Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Rehoboam Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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A strongly felt, if not terribly gripping, sendoff for a Turow favorite nearly 35 years after his appearance in Presumed...
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Trying his final case at 85, celebrated criminal defense lawyer Sandy Stern defends a Nobel-winning doctor and longtime friend whose cancer wonder drug saved Stern's life but subsequently led to the deaths of others.
Federal prosecutors are charging the eminent doctor, Kiril Pafko, with murder, fraud, and insider trading. An Argentine émigré like Stern, Pafko is no angel. His counselor is certain he sold stock in the company that produced the drug, g-Livia, before users' deaths were reported. The 78-year-old Nobelist is a serial adulterer whose former and current lovers have strong ties to the case. Working for one final time alongside his daughter and proficient legal partner, Marta, who has announced she will close the firm and retire along with her father following the case, Stern must deal not only with "senior moments" before Chief Judge Sonya "Sonny" Klonsky, but also his physical frailty. While taking a deep dive into the ups and downs of a complicated big-time trial, Turow (Testimony, 2017, etc.) crafts a love letter to his profession through his elegiac appreciation of Stern, who has appeared in all his Kindle County novels. The grandly mannered attorney (his favorite response is "Just so") has dedicated himself to the law at great personal cost. But had he not spent so much of his life inside courtrooms, "He never would have known himself." With its bland prosecutors, frequent focus on technical details like "double-blind clinical trials," and lack of real surprises, the novel likely will disappoint some fans of legal thrillers. But this smoothly efficient book gains timely depth through its discussion of thorny moral issues raised by a drug that can extend a cancer sufferer's life expectancy at the risk of suddenly ending it.
A strongly felt, if not terribly gripping, sendoff for a Turow favorite nearly 35 years after his appearance in Presumed Innocent.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4813-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | THRILLER | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER
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