A thriller for those who want more thrills than realism.
The lives of several families violently collide in this crime thriller.
There are so many skeletons in the closets of Churchill’s (The 7th Victim, 2012) characters that the town of Bullhead City, Arizona, could be a boneyard. In any case, the Pennington sisters—FBI agent Amanda, cop Rachael, and Meg (“I’m a pistol, and going easy isn’t my style”)—certainly need to do a better job of vetting their friends and associates: Meg’s roommate tries to poison her, Rachael’s boyfriend’s partner chokes her unconscious, and Amanda is kidnapped by someone who turns out to be the brother of the killer who kidnapped and tortured Meg in Churchill’s previous novel. The killer’s sister—yet another bad seed—opines that she and her siblings went wrong due to a “[w]impy mother, mad father, no money. Throw in a little incest and a lot of physical abuse, and you’ve got it.” The Penningtons’ upbringing was relatively normal; however, their mother, Grace, has several shocking family secrets, as well as a tracking device implanted behind her ear. Over the course of the novel, the multiple storylines intersect and culminate in the discovery of a sex trafficking operation. The killer’s plan involves a mini-sub, a luxury super yacht, and 10 international billionaire playboys bidding on bikini-clad young women. Churchill shows that she can write action scenes well. However, they can sometimes become cartoonish, such as when a sister’s boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend drugs and kidnaps him; she gives him Viagra and has her way with him like “a bareback rider hanging on for the full eight seconds.” Indeed, the book’s violence never lets up, progressing from the alarming to the absurd. The author also uses kidnappings too often, and her characters seem to shake off physical trauma and emotional pain unreasonably fast. Still, it can be a joy ride at times to hang with these spunky, gun-toting Pennington gals—as well as those billionaire playboys.
A thriller for those who want more thrills than realism.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990903000
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Raging River Press
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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