Not without drawbacks but fun and well imagined.
Hurd’s debut is a modern creature feature that pays homage to classic horror.
Derek Rains is nervous when he brings home a Xolo (Mexican hairless) dog from a business trip to Mexico. The pup is supposed to be a surprise for his young kids, Max and Gracie, but he failed to tell his wife, Alison, about it, and she’s ticked. Derek ignores the warnings of the old man who sold the dog and finds a way to smuggle it home. When it bites Max at show and tell at school, Alison is irate, and the Xolo is canis non grata. Derek drives out to an animal shelter in a remote location to drop off the dog, but when he sees the vet covered in blood from an operation and the other dogs go nuts in their cages, he figures the humane thing to do is to drop the dog off in the woods. Of course, the Xolo is a special dog with the power to control other dogs, and he soon begins a terror campaign across the remote Puebla County in Colorado, with Derek and Max as his prime targets for terror. Derek has to team up with Sheriff Garth Chambers and Heloise Lopez, head of the county animal control department, to stop a giant, murderous pack of dogs from overtaking the area. Hurd is a talented writer who knows how to pace a scene for maximum scares. For example, when Max and his friends sneak out to an old house one night, Hurd lets you see every detail and feel the menace—you know the dogs are close. He creates believable characters with human flaws and problems. And horror fans will enjoy his occasional nods to genre classics (a neighboring town is named Castle Rock, a Stephen King reference, and a doctor is named Pretorius after a character from Bride of Frankenstein). Where Hurd runs into trouble is about halfway into the book, after a violent and furious confrontation between the dogs and local law enforcement. The plot should have started to draw to a close there, but instead, we get a government weapons subplot that just gets in the way. Also worthy of note—the Xolo’s point of view is represented, which is an unnecessary distraction.
Not without drawbacks but fun and well imagined.Pub Date: March 31, 2023
ISBN: 9798886832808
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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