Strong female characters and social issues augment this medical thriller.
An ER doc seeks a cure for a virus seemingly targeting African-Americans, which puts her and her infant daughter at risk in Crickard’s (Another Five Patients, 2018, etc.) thriller.
Dr. Sara Sullivan is understandably worried about a rapidly spreading viral illness. The majority of those infected by the virus, called Labrador, have been in D.C., where Sara lives and works. Over 90 percent of African-Americans infected have died, and Sara, who’s biracial (her estranged father was black), and her baby daughter, Elyse, are in danger. After Sara treats patients possibly suffering from Labrador at George Washington University Hospital, the Department of Health forces her into a “voluntary quarantine,” though she’s asymptomatic. Sara believes there’s a cure, which she’s determined to find, especially when it’s clear millions may soon be infected, including Elyse, who’s showing signs of the illness. In fact, someone, rather suspiciously, has had a Labrador vaccine in development for years, well before most Americans had even heard of the virus. Meanwhile, racial tensions in the States are rising: Blacks think whites are getting preferential medical treatment, while whites assume the disease originated in Africa. Sara’s hunt for a cure ultimately exposes a sinister coverup that entails sabotage, kidnapping, and murder. While Crickard adeptly delivers thriller components (Sara dodges authorities after she escapes quarantine), she also shrewdly addresses serious issues such as racism and sexism. For example, Sara is a resilient protagonist who has endured racist comments all her life and encounters numerous patronizing men throughout the story. Even when her cop fiance (and Elyse’s dad), Marty Thompson, uses a pet name, “sweetie,” it’s somewhat condescending. While other similarly arrogant male characters are interchangeable, the women, in contrast, are memorable. For example, graduate research student Veronica Laughlin fearlessly says to a police officer, “Didn’t your mama teach you it’s not polite to point?” The author retains an energetic plot with Sara on the lam and provides a surprise or two as villains and motives come to light.
Strong female characters and social issues augment this medical thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9992059-2-1
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A teenage girl is the strong center of a fever-dream story of hidden pasts.
In an Appalachian hamlet, a girl’s world is shattered by the secrets of the adults around her.
Burns’ first book, Cinderland (2014), was a memoir about her childhood in western Pennsylvania. She sets this assured debut novel nearby, in the remote hollers outside the ominously named Trap. It’s a minuscule, poverty-ridden West Virginia town where the dying coal industry still poisons the environment and the moonshiners of the title still make illegal liquor for tradition’s sake. At age 15, Wren Bird, who narrates much of the book, has never been more than a few miles from her family’s cabin. Her father, Briar, is a snake handler, a preacher whose services, held in an abandoned gas station for a shrinking congregation, revolve around him grasping his venomous rattlers and copperheads and raising them skyward while speaking in tongues. Wren tells the reader, “My father obeyed the rituals of snake-handling law, which meant he pretended we still lived in the 1940s instead of the age of the internet.” Called to God when a lightning strike blinded him in one eye as a teen, Briar fell in love with Wren’s mother, Ruby, not long afterward. He’s ruthlessly protective of his wife and daughter, forbidding most outside contact and only grudgingly letting Ruby home-school Wren. Ruby’s closest relationship is not with Briar but with her longtime friend Ivy, who lives down the mountain with her four kids and opioid-addicted husband. As girls, Ruby and Ivy dreamed of escape, but Ruby—also a snake handler’s daughter—married at her father’s command, and restless Ivy married so she wouldn’t have to leave Ruby. As the novel opens, Ivy falls into an open fire, but it seems Briar has worked a miracle when she suffers no grievous injury. That fall, though, sets off a cascade of revelations and rebellions. And Briar’s lethal snakes are this book’s version of Chekhov’s gun—you know they’re going to bite someone. Wren’s engaging, convincing voice leads the reader through her strange world.
A teenage girl is the strong center of a fever-dream story of hidden pasts.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53364-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The book reads like a cheesy episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
Love is challenging for any species—but things get more complicated when you’re a ghoul who wants to eat anyone who gets close to you.
In DeAngelis’ (Petty Magic, 2010, etc.) third novel, 16-year-old Maren is determined to track down her father after her mother, who clearly loves her but is scared for her own life, abandons her, leaving behind some money and the girl's birth certificate, which includes some important information: her father’s name. Maren started eating people when she was a little kid. She devoured the kind babysitter who showed her affection, and things only got worse from there. She ate a boy who befriended her at summer camp. She ate the son of her mother’s boss during a party. She ate other people. It isn’t until she sets out on the road to find her father that she finally meets one of her own kind. Sully is a talkative man, and there’s something a bit sinister about him, too. He weaves a rope out of hair from people he's eaten. Maren decides to find her dad by herself, and at a Wal-Mart in the middle of the country, she finally meets another cannibal closer to her own age. Lee is someone she quickly relates to. His first kill was his babysitter, too. But as she tells him: “I make friends…I just can’t keep them.” Lee joins Maren on her quest to find her father, and a good portion of the book is about their developing relationship. Even though there are entertaining moments, DeAngelis’ prose is run-of-the-mill and her observations, somewhat obvious.
The book reads like a cheesy episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04650-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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