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Skyward

Name: Skyward
Author: Philip David Alexander

by Philip David Alexander ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A chilling, atmospheric crime procedural.

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Cops in a small Canadian town try to solve the disappearance of a young man and catch a killer in this complex thriller.

Alexander (Peacefield, 2014, etc.) uses multiple perspectives in this story of a criminal on the loose, set against the backdrop of the vacant Skyward fairgrounds. It begins with a seemingly innocuous car chase; Detective Matt Sharp and his partner are on the trail of a man whom they caught drinking while driving. However, as the perspectives switch throughout the novel, it soon becomes evident that the driver (known only as “Pursued”) is guilty of far worse crimes, including murder. Meanwhile, local troublemaker Stan Hill finds himself the prime suspect when his young brother, Jarrod, goes missing; he’s the third such young boy, in fact, to disappear from the Skyward fairgrounds. Finally, Constable Sheila Warfield, who secretly has the power of psychic premonitions, gets involved when she senses evil and danger in the case of the aforementioned driver. As the suspense escalates and the true identity of Pursued is revealed to readers, the characters must figure out who the killer among them is before he strikes again. Alexander has a sharp eye for detail and a keen sense of place, which bring scenes at the deserted fairgrounds, once home to a “giant, twinkling freak-show with a big top,” to life for readers. Some of the overlapping perspectives make the narrative a little confusing to follow, especially at the beginning; there are enough people who have absent or disappointing fathers that it can be tricky to remember who’s who. But as the story races on, it becomes clearer who the culprit is and the suspense ramps up enough to keep readers hooked. A few of the players, such as Sharp’s wife, Ingrid, could have been fleshed out more, but generally, the narrators are well-developed and compelling—even if the passages narrated by Pursued are a little gruesome in their murderous detail. Overall, this is an unusual but well-crafted and smartly paced thriller.

A chilling, atmospheric crime procedural.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Now or Never Publishing Company

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

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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.