Much of the enjoyment depends on the reader's reaction to the idea of a really, really proactive saint.
In his 18th appearance, Doc Ford (Deep Shadow, 2010, etc.) and…er...Joan of Arc contend with villainy on behalf of a beset 21st-century teenager.
Tula Choimha—13, and as innocent as she is courageous—has traveled to Florida from a remote mountain village in Guatamala. In search of her mother, what she finds instead is a kind of double-dyed jeopardy. Harris Squires and his girlfriend Frankie Manchon, who run the Red Citrus Mobile Home Park, and who take Tula into virtual captivity, are unabashed, black-hearted no-goods. Squires, a steroid-driven physical giant, is a drug dealer and a white-slaver, but he pales when compared to Frankie, a pernicious compound of Lucretia Borgia, Lizzie Borden and uncut malice. Neither of them see innocence as anything worth preserving, a view soon to be shared by a variety of other would-be exploiters. Still, Tula is not without friends. For starters, there’s Joan of Arc. Though she died in 1431, the Maid of Orleans is in it almost nonstop, offering voice-activated contact with Tula in her time of trouble. Not only does Joan function as patron saint—someone who can be prayed to or called on for guidance in a general way—she is energetically hands-on. “Hurry,” she tells her young charge when the need arises for a counter-move to forestall Frankie in an act of wickedness, "The woman's coming. Do it now!” Doc Ford, marine biologist extraordinaire, who over the course of his 18 novels has rescued enough females in distress to populate several leagues of their own, is another Tula supporter, supplying muscle and derring-do on demand. And then finally, perhaps most notably, there is in Tula’s corner a converted monster—a case of repentant savagery tamed and redeemed by the Maid of Guatemala’s indomitable goodness.
Much of the enjoyment depends on the reader's reaction to the idea of a really, really proactive saint.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-15705-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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