A heavenly retelling of a hellish tale.
Murder, mayhem, and deception stain the Kansas prairie in this historical novel of the Old West.
In his latest novel, Nicastro (Circumference, 2015) fictionalizes the story of the Bender family, a gang of real-life serial killers who preyed on unsuspecting travelers in Kansas in the late 19th century. The narrative, told mostly from the perspectives of Kate Bender and Leroy Dick, one of her most upstanding neighbors, switches regularly between the family’s murder spree and its aftermath and also addresses the childhood experiences that made the main characters who they are. Everyone has a secret to hide, and no one is quite what they seem on the surface. For the bloodthirsty, demon-worshipping Kate, murder is just a means to find her long-lost father, and she longs to give up such crime so that she can be with Leroy, whom she secretly loves. But the honest, compassionate Leroy has done his own share of killing in the past as a guerrilla fighter in Kansas, and when his neighbors’ crimes are brought to light, he decides that it’s his responsibility to track them down. The Benders aren’t an ordinary family, but they do develop their own kinds of affection for one another, even as they make their livings by killing and robbing. Through his characters, Nicastro explores the very human desires that can turn people into monsters and the lies even ordinary people tell themselves and others to bury their guilt. By the time Kate asks, “have you seen what I’ve seen? Do you know what suffering is?…Until you know the answer to those questions, who are you to judge me?,” it feels like a question to readers as much as to another character. This meticulously researched, vividly told story marries an almost biblical poetry to the rough action of a Western. Readers who can stomach its violence will find a bleak beauty in this portrayal of one of the American prairie’s ugliest stories.
A heavenly retelling of a hellish tale.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242256-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Witness Impulse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
