An involving gothic mystery with a slow-burning emotional core that blends folklore and the supernatural.
Telemark’s mystery sends its lead on a thrilling, monster-hunting adventure.
Set in 1732 London and Cluaran, Scotland, the novel centers on Sacha Athenois, a monster hunter who’s drawn into an investigation that uncovers the existence of a supernatural entity known as the Harvestman, a spectral, spidery figure tied to ancient legends and murderous events in the village of Cluaran, located near the haunting Thistledown Moor. The book opens with a flashback: Baird Clacher, a stablehand, and Thora McKenzie, the minister’s daughter, are arguing. As dusk falls, a towering humanoid figure with glowing blue eyes—the Harvestman—kills Baird (“Then, it was towering over him. It slowly craned an inky face…. The last thing he saw were three thin, sharp fingers, each three feet long”). This scene throws readers into the midst of action as the plot shifts to London, where Sacha assists in examining the corpse of Councilman Cecil Priscian, discovered mutilated and dumped in the Thames. He’s thought to be the latest victim of the Hoorons, a masked gang whose members castrate and kill men involved with prostitutes. Sacha suspects Priscian was the leader of the Hoorons and was betrayed by his followers. Sacha then travels to Cluaran to reunite with his friend Alec Dunsmuir, a washed-up physician and former admirer of Thora. Sacha meets and grows romantically entangled with Katharina, formerly “Perdita.” He later learns that she used to be a chambermaid at the local inn and is also a part-time “goose,” or prostitute.
Telemark expertly toggles between the two romances (Thora and Alec with Perdita and Sacha) and adds emotional layers to the conflicts, especially when Alec confronts his shortcomings and must borrow money from his uncle, Gavin. After arriving in Cluaran, the scene cuts to three of the local boys: Johnny, Robbie, and Tommy. This scene reminds readers of the real reason they’ve come to the village, to find the monster terrorizing the area. Tommy narrowly escapes becoming another victim of the Harvestman, elevating the stakes. They believe they’ve identified the source of the disturbances, and they encounter various Hoorons as they continue to investigate. During their mission, Sacha, Alec, and Callum (the local constable) discover several horrors, and their attempt to kill one creature with boiling lye yields cinematic results: “He had to desperately dodge as sharp fingers stabbed like a pitchfork through the ceiling.” Some questions go unanswered, such as whether certain characters will be reunited, but since this book is a prequel, there’s plenty of room for eventual answers. Telemark excels at blending thorough character development with a mounting sense of unease. By the time the action peaks, it feels not just earned, but inevitable. Each major character is haunted—by regret, history, love, or prophecy—and their growth is central to the story’s resolution. This novel has all the aspects one would want in a romantic thriller, and the 18th-century aesthetics only add to its appeal.
An involving gothic mystery with a slow-burning emotional core that blends folklore and the supernatural.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798218992651
Page Count: 440
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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