Pace crafts compelling characters in service to a thrilling plot, with narrative riches in a vein thought by many to be...
Pace’s debut supernatural thriller follows Sheriff Estin Booker as he faces off against the ultimate cosmic force.
In Cumberton, Md., trouble begins soon after a construction crew unearths a small wooden box at the site of a new dormitory at the local Christian college. Trapped within the box is Lucifer’s Light, a tool that can bring about a worldwide descent into Hell. Once released, it begins rapidly claiming souls, driving young and old to commit horrific suicides under the amplified guilt of any past transgressions. Assisted by a lovely but hard-bitten Baltimore detective on forced vacation, Booker investigates to the best of his ability. But with the Light on the loose and demonic enforcers on call, even being armed and faithful may not be enough. While satanic thrillers may have gone out of vogue in the ’70s, Pace makes a good argument for reviving the genre, bringing hard-edged rationality and modern investigative techniques to bear on his supernatural plot. Despite frequent flashbacks that span nearly four centuries, the plot flows with clarity and economy, maintaining a narrative rhythm that provides all the information readers need without rushing the story. Some of the character flourishes aren’t as successful—the enforced using of “shuck” instead of the F-word quickly grates on the reader’s internal ear, defeating its purpose—but overall, the players are more well-rounded than strictly called for by the genre. Characters that might seem to be antagonistic, such as the TV evangelist who founded the college, turn out to have surprising depth and sympathies—making their eventual fates more rewarding or, in some cases, heartbreaking.
Pace crafts compelling characters in service to a thrilling plot, with narrative riches in a vein thought by many to be played out.Pub Date: March 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615518428
Page Count: 450
Publisher: River Point Press
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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