A smart, tense tale that keeps its classic cop drama relevant to current events.
A Philadelphia police detective looks into a shooting that may have ties to the Islamic State group in this thriller.
A good cop gets shot in a bad part of town, and it’s an all-too-common tragedy. But when the attack happens right before an event of international significance, it’s another thing entirely. Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States is underway, culminating with the World Meeting of Families, a massive set of celebrations that will bring hundreds of thousands of worshipers and travelers to Philadelphia. Only a couple of weeks beforehand, Officer Jake Loman is shot along the procession route by a man claiming to be acting on behalf of IS. While Loman survives, a chain of incidents unfolds that no one could have predicted. Detective Frank Benson, a sometime-black sheep of the Philadelphia Police Department, is unexpectedly assigned to investigate the case even though it seems open and shut at first glance. Meanwhile, he ends up paired to work on the probe with Ophelia “O” Brown-Thurman, an old friend and Loman’s platoon sergeant. In addition, Veronica Cartwright, another personal connection of Benson’s and a Secret Service agent on assignment for the pope’s visit, ends up looking into the possible terrorist link. A tangled web of old wounds and feelings emerges—everyone involved has a rocky past, but they all nonetheless have to unite to figure out the truth behind a crime that ties violent extremists, corrupt cops, and plenty of twists together. Goldstein (Murder and Mayhem in Manayunk, 2016, etc.) spins a taut page-turner with an eye toward the way international threats mix with problems closer to home. The novel’s prose is solid, and its pacing is fast, making it easy to identify the most important details of each scene while still maintaining a complex plot. The characters also work well together, particularly Benson, who’s a classic hard-boiled hero. His previous struggles with addiction and shame are deftly handled, a touch that helps prevent the sense of his character's getting lost in the procedural elements of the story.
A smart, tense tale that keeps its classic cop drama relevant to current events.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 211
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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