A uniquely imaginative and enthralling suspense thriller set in a futuristic LA.
An inspired street artist in an alternate-universe Los Angeles accused of murder struggles to clear his name in this debut novel by S.
California graffiti artist Tyler declares: “Graff is my life. I was born to get up on walls.” His dedication to a life decorating buildings and billboards is realized by seeing the four letters of his tagname, “SOBR,” all across Los Angeles. But in this futuristic setting, defacing public property is a heinous crime (the text includes pages of laws for these and other offenses). Over time, Tyler has emerged as a notorious, law-skirting graffiti artist in the novel’s futuristic, bizarro version of the United States in which a “king” reigns supreme enforcing an expansive array of ultra-conservative laws. One night, while he is on a South-Central LA rooftop, Tyler witnesses a shadowy figure disposing of a body in an alleyway below him. After noticing Tyler hovering stories above him, the murderer cleverly manages to frame him for the crime and flees the scene. An APB for Tyler’s arrest leads to a series of exciting adventures around the city as the protagonist evades the law and a dogged media as he desperately searches for a way to exonerate himself.
“S.” is an impressive writer able to conjure a futuristic Los Angeles complete with draconian laws and a constrictive conservative governmental hierarchy. The author’s intriguing premise of an anarchic graffiti artist on the run from the law is unconventional and will draw the interest of suspense, mystery, and crime-fiction readers who enjoy a little noir atmosphere with their action scenarios. The story also incorporates Greek mythology, highlighting the spiritual aspects of the hymns, verses, and prayers to Dionysus/Bacchus Tyler utters in his most desperate moments. Tyler is an immediately enticing character—an artist who scales structures, ascending like Spider-Man in the name of tagging billboards and the sides of buildings for art’s sake, always remaining on vigilant watch for law enforcement. In often breathless prose, S. realistically details the stealthy nature of SOBR’s art escapades, which result in a series of close calls while he tags structures and then skillfully and swiftly evades surveillance officers on his bicycle “with a duffle bag (filled with illicit items) at one in the morning, swinging from a rope under a billboard like Errol Flynn in some goddamn urban swashbuckler film.” Peripheral characters, like Tyler’s skeptical friends; housemates who argue about wealth disparity, corporate power, and excessive consumption; and sneaky art gallery owners intermingle with descriptions of artwork and religious hymns to add spice to the story. The plot itself is riveting and transgressive, with philosophical introspection adding rich counterpoint to all of the action. A digression contemplating the differences between graffiti and outdoor advertising is as thought-provoking and compelling as the segments about how government ignores the urgency of climate erosion. Ultimately, readers will root for the hero to freely fulfill the “inspired genius” of his artistic destiny and escape the steely clutches of a wrongful allegation. This novel’s combination of an engaging protagonist, evocative detail and setting, and riveting plot makes for a winning debut for an author with obvious potential.
A uniquely imaginative and enthralling suspense thriller set in a futuristic LA.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2021
ISBN: 9781944866983
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Clash Books
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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