A book hardcore fans of Mann's film may enjoy but others will dismiss as unneeded.
A combination prequel and sequel to the much-admired Mann film that brought together Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
The movie climaxed in 1995, with Pacino's intense LA cop, Vincent Hanna, shooting and killing De Niro's fatalistic bank thief Neil McCauley, his nemesis and alter ego. In the "before" sections of the novel, set in 1988, Hanna pursues a sadistic home-invading gang of killers and rapists while McCauley plans the heist of millions in cartel money from a truck bound for Mexico. Following McCauley's death and a massive shootout, his wounded right-hand man, Chris Shiherlis (the Val Kilmer character), escapes to South America, where he goes to work for a Taiwanese Paraguayan crime boss. Women figure in the plots: McCauley has an affair in Mexico with Elisa, a “seventh-generation smuggler,” and Chris sleeps with the crime boss’s daughter, Ana, even as he pines for his estranged wife and son. Minus the film's psychological mano a mano between Hanna and McCauley, this nearly 500-page novel, Mann's first, lacks a compelling center. And in Chris, it lacks a compelling protagonist—once a sidekick, always a sidekick. Hanna's fierce efforts to save Elisa's daughter from a mad killer 12 years after her single mother was killed energize the book, leading to an explosive highway chase. But with its unwieldy structure, the novel keeps getting in its own way. And despite the collaboration of seasoned pro Gardiner, the descriptive writing is weak: "Looking into his vacant blue eyes is like staring into the black ocean at night." Ultimately, Mann has written not a self-contained novel, but a novelization of the film sequel the 79-year-old director envisions.
A book hardcore fans of Mann's film may enjoy but others will dismiss as unneeded.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-265331-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
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. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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