A grim, invigorating, and thoroughly gripping crime tale.
A blackmailer tenaciously hounds a businessman with evidence of his supposed infidelity—and a much worse transgression—in this thriller.
Davis Briggs isn’t the best salesman. He and his friend Todd have confidence in the software Davis wrote, but their startup company continues to struggle. On another fruitless business trip in Los Angeles, Davis meets and drinks with Justin Reed, a flashy guy who professes he earns a living by making sure people have a good time. Davis later awakens in a hotel room, remembering nothing but aware he’s lost an entire day. He soon discovers a $5,000 charge on his personal credit card linked to JRFUNINC. He returns to his wife, Hattie, and daughters in Oregon and tries ignoring Justin’s texts insisting Davis owes him. Davis claims his credit cards were stolen to explain the unusual charges on his personal and business accounts, but Justin has only just started. His demands for payment escalate, coupled with a bevy of photos showcasing Davis in compromising positions with women he can’t recall. But the most incriminating picture is one in which it appears Davis has murdered someone. Justin crops up in Oregon, where he makes direct threats against Davis’ family. The culprit’s increasingly hostile behavior fuels Davis’ desperation and, if not impeded, could soon turn deadly. As in McCrary’s (Steady Madness, 2018, etc.) preceding novels, the plot begins unfolding almost immediately. Both the hapless protagonist and his grievous situation are believable as he tries to remedy what at first seems like a relatively small problem. Of course, it easily and quickly spirals beyond Davis’ control, and it’s the simplicity of Justin’s plan that makes the book truly unnerving. Tension is amped up by Davis’ understandable paranoia, seeing Justin in various places even when he isn’t there. It adds up to a fairly gloomy tale, particularly as Davis’ quiet despair slowly splinters his relationship with Hattie. But the story’s impact is indisputable: The protagonist reacts to the pressure physically, with endless churning guts and “a heaviness in his chest” as his subconscious starts “working him over.”
A grim, invigorating, and thoroughly gripping crime tale.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Bad Words Inc.
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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