To paraphrase one of Gallagher’s own character descriptions, this is a novel with high expectations for itself—a book with...
In this debut crime thriller, a disgraced former Chicago Gangs Unit cop seeks vindication and redemption while investigating a series of grisly murders.
One year after accidentally shooting and killing an 11-year-old boy in a Chicago housing project, Detective “Tow Truck” Miller is offered a transfer to Homicide. At the same time, a serial killer starts terrorizing the city, seemingly exacting revenge for the murders of two call girls. As Miller races against time to catch the killer, he also searches for a witness who might be able to clear him in the previous, tragic shooting. Gallagher efficiently juggles concurrent subplots that propel the novel forward as they introduce a disparate gallery of characters, including trader Richard Landon, whose run of bad luck includes a devastating financial loss at the hands of Rosco Mink, the serial killer’s latest victim; Landon’s sexually voracious, high-maintenance lover, Vicki; his former fiancée, Katie O’Connor, whose mother, Madeline, oversees the police board that will decide Miller’s fate; and 12-year-old Ben Foster and his new friend, Spider, whose impoverished families have been devastated by gang violence. This is an ambitious police procedural, murder mystery and social-issues novel in the vein of Richard Price, the author of Clockers (1992). Gallagher vividly renders Chicago’s tony Gold Coast, whose denizens have “real money…[a]nd power,” as well as gang-infested projects and insulated suburbs that hide their own secrets. However, he lacks Price’s mastery of plotting and his pitch-perfect ear for dialogue; Spider’s patois is particularly ham-handed (“Ain’t no polices comin’. Po-lices doan bother with no fire crackers”). More, too, could have been made of Miller’s reputation for strong-arm “Gang Crimes tactics,” with his new, more politically sensitive beat. Gallagher is better at conveying how the city works for rich, white people, and how it doesn’t work for struggling African-Americans. For example, during the media circus surrounding the serial murders, Ben notes how, when his father was shot, “there were no headlines for him.” The pieces of the puzzle ultimately fit together, albeit not all seamlessly, but the twist ending packs a lingering wallop.
To paraphrase one of Gallagher’s own character descriptions, this is a novel with high expectations for itself—a book with depth that, despite its shortcomings, is endlessly interesting.Pub Date: July 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1467545303
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ampersand Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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