An enthralling, often grim fusion of superpowers and serious real-life issues.
A suicidal loner uses a special power—his inability to die—to fight crime in this somber take on the superhero.
Depression has long been a part of Owen Kale’s life. He’s given up and tried killing himself but hasn’t died—or rather can’t die. He tries for a death-by-robber one day when he happens to interrupt a heist. He’s shot but is uninjured and inadvertently saves the day. Dinah Borst, an ambitious police captain in an unnamed metropolis, takes notice and wants his help pushing past the red tape. Owen, who’s a civilian, can enter buildings sans a warrant to collect evidence, and his apparent immortality affords him relative safety. He aids authorities in shutting down human traffickers and drug rings. But when a homicidal stranger dead set on taking over organized crime also displays an immunity to bullets, Borst suspects Owen. To prove his innocence, Owen may have to take out this supervillain on his own. As if that weren’t enough, someone sics a hit man on him; sure, he’s unkillable, but that doesn’t mean physical assaults don’t hurt. Láav’s seamless novel-length trilogy favors introspection over action. The author treats topics like depression and suicide respectfully; Owen revels in saving lives but doesn’t instantly overcome his mental illness. Similarly, deaths seriously impact characters, and Borst battles alcoholism and possible PTSD in Part III. Throughout, the mood is bleak and suits the lead’s struggles. The striking cast, however, adds color; there’s cautious Borst (who demands the death-proof superhero wear bulletproof vests) and retired cop/personal trainer Sharon Richardson, who whips Owen into better shape. The prose keeps the story moving no matter how profound conversations become (suicidal ideation, racist police, etc.), and the finale is memorable and fitting.
An enthralling, often grim fusion of superpowers and serious real-life issues.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-03-912832-3
Page Count: 311
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
Weird and haunting and excellent.
The much-anticipated second novel from the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2004).
The narrator of this novel answers to the name “Piranesi” even though he suspects that it's not his name. This name was chosen for him by the Other, the only living person Piranesi has encountered during his extensive explorations of the House. Readers who recognize Piranesi as the name of an Italian artist known for his etchings of Roman ruins and imaginary prisons might recognize this as a cruel joke that the Other enjoys at the expense of the novel’s protagonist. It is that, but the name is also a helpful clue for readers trying to situate themselves in the world Clarke has created. The character known as Piranesi lives within a Classical structure of endless, inescapable halls occasionally inundated by the sea. These halls are inhabited by statues that seem to be allegories—a woman carrying a beehive; a dog-fox teaching two squirrels and two satyrs; two children laughing, one of them carrying a flute—but the meaning of these images is opaque. Piranesi is happy to let the statues simply be. With her second novel, Clarke invokes tropes that have fueled a century of surrealist and fantasy fiction as well as movies, television series, and even video games. At the foundation of this story is an idea at least as old as Chaucer: Our world was once filled with magic, but the magic has drained away. Clarke imagines where all that magic goes when it leaves our world and what it would be like to be trapped in that place. Piranesi is a naif, and there’s much that readers understand before he does. But readers who accompany him as he learns to understand himself will see magic returning to our world.
Weird and haunting and excellent.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63557-563-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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