A solid if unremarkable technological thriller noteworthy for its strangely unlikable—and compellingly strange—protagonist.
It’s the end of the world as he knows it, and he feels smug.
Richtel’s (The Cloud, 2013, etc.) thriller concerns the plight of one Jeremy Stillwater, a young computer genius whose conflict-predicting software lands him in the center of a sinister plot to detonate a nuclear device in San Francisco…an event that, according to his miraculous machine, will precipitate apocalyptic all-out nuclear war. The narrative’s ticking clock/countdown structure—the program indicates the catastrophe will occur in a matter of days—effectively maintains tension as Stillwater evades assassins, untangles the motivations of business partners and government agents, attempts to uncover the secret religious organization behind the planned attack, and, most crucially, struggles to overcome his own toxic personality and feeble interpersonal skills to rise to the occasion and save the world. This emphasis on Stillwater’s personal growth distinguishes this otherwise by-the-numbers techno-thriller, in ways both intriguing and off-putting. Stillwater is an extremely unpleasant protagonist, a bitter, superior know-it-all with an unerring instinct for going for the jugular in just about any human interaction. As the events unfold almost exclusively from his point of view, the reader occasionally may wish for the world to blow up already, just to be rid of the overbearing jerk. Ultimately, though, Richtel’s characterization pays off; Stillwater is more interesting than the standard-issue bland adventure hero, and his gradual appreciation of other people achieves an authentic poignancy by the story’s conclusion. While details of the plot (a serviceable rehash of familiar suspense tropes) may fade, Stillwater remains a memorable hero.
A solid if unremarkable technological thriller noteworthy for its strangely unlikable—and compellingly strange—protagonist.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-220118-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
These characters are so beloved that readers may not mind when a few twists veer dangerously close to the absurd.
Three Gardner fan favorites—FBI agent Kimberly Quincy, Sgt. D.D. Warren of the Boston Police, and serial-killer–survivor–turned-vigilante Flora Dane—team up to untangle a series of murders, and lots of small-town secrets, in the Georgia hills.
On a hike in the hills outside the quaint tourist town of Niche, Georgia, a couple finds the partial skeletal remains of Lilah Abenito, who went missing 15 years ago. Lilah was thought to be one of the first victims connected to Jacob Ness, who kidnapped Flora eight years ago when she was a Boston college student and held her captive, mostly in a coffin-sized box, for 472 days. The chance to link the deceased Ness to additional crimes is impossible to pass up, and FBI agent Kimberly Quincy invites D.D., Flora (who is a confidential informant for D.D.), and computer analyst Keith Edgar, Flora's friend/love interest, to be part of her task force. A search through the hills turns up a mass grave full of more skeletal remains. While D.D. is updating the mayor, Howard Counsel, and his wife, Martha, who own the charming Mountain Laurel B&B, she becomes interested in their timid, fearful maid, a young Hispanic woman who's brain damaged and unable to speak following a car accident when she was a child. When Martha suddenly hangs herself (or so it seems), D.D. realizes something very odd is going on at ye olde B&B. Gardner juggles multiple narratives, including that of the Counsels’ nameless maid, with ease. However, the involvement of two civilians in a major federal task force is initially hard to swallow, as are a few supernatural elements Gardner (Look for Me, 2018, etc.) shoehorns in. But Flora’s tentative romance with Keith and her realization that she might finally be thriving, not just surviving, are bright spots, as is Gardner’s evolving and sensitive exploration of trauma and its insidious, lasting effects.
These characters are so beloved that readers may not mind when a few twists veer dangerously close to the absurd.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4500-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.
Hard Case revives a pair of movie-related novellas originally published under the cryptic title Enough in 1977.
A Travesty, the first and longer of these stories, opens with movie reviewer Carey Thorpe standing over the dead body of actress Laura Penney, the lover with whom his quarrel had suddenly and fatally escalated. Even though her death was technically an accident, Carey, who doesn’t want anyone connecting him with it, immediately begins concealing all indications that he was ever in her apartment. It’s all for naught: Soon he finds himself blackmailed by private detective John Edgarson and having to commit another felony to satisfy his demands. From that point on, his dilemma rapidly spirals into one of the comic nightmares in which Westlake (Brothers Keepers, 1975/2019, etc.) specialized: Moments in which he’s threatened with exposure alternate with long intervals in which NYPD DS Al Bray and especially DS Fred Staples, who’ve decided that he’s innocent, take Carey under their wings, marveling at his ability to solve murders committed by other people; then he caps his transgressions by taking Staples’ wife, Patricia, to bed. The second novella, Ordo, couldn’t be more different. The naval mates of Ordo Tupikos, a deeply ordinary San Diego sailor, tell him that Estelle Anlic, the woman whose marriage to him was annulled years ago when the courts, egged on by her mother, discovered that she was underage, has transformed herself into movie star Dawn Devayne. Against all odds, he manages to reintroduce himself to Estelle, or Dawn, but although her agent plays it as a storybook reunion, Orry just can’t find Estelle in Dawn, who’s changed a lot more than he has, and the tale ends on a note of sad resignation.
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78565-720-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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