A sharp-eyed mystery geared more toward thinkers than thrill-seekers.
In Flynt’s less-than-lascivious mystery, a missing person case uncovers child pornography and murder.
The third installment in the Brad Frame mystery series (Unforgiven Shadows, 2005; Transplanted Death, 2011) doesn’t require readers to have read the previous novels in order to appreciate detective Brad Frame and his observant assistant, Sharon Porter. The duo gets to work as soon as Derek Young shows up in the office, accompanied by his younger brother’s probation officer. Derek reports having seen Jeremy, his missing brother, on a pornography video. Jeremy, who just turned 18, could have been underage when the porn was recorded. They also investigate Maple Grove, the juvenile detention center Jeremy Young ran away from before becoming a porn star. But when another alleged porn star is found dead, the missing Jeremy is almost completely forgotten. Frame and Porter take over the murky case, watching Internet porn for clues and talking to several people with connections to the juvenile detention center. Although conducting a series of interviews may be how a real investigation works, it nonetheless slows down the pace of a mystery novel. At some points, the story has enough dialogue to read like a script, with all the scenes happening in offices, shabby residences and Applebee’s. The point of view shifts from a distant third-person to first-person when Porter takes over the scene. She’s astute and thoughtful, and it’s easy to see why Frame keeps her close to his side. She notices details with a cynical style that adds life to the narrative’s otherwise clinical tone, which makes the shift more welcome than jarring. Frame is a detective who knows to keep digging for the truth among lies, gossip and coverups, so readers will be guessing until the end.
A sharp-eyed mystery geared more toward thinkers than thrill-seekers.Pub Date: May 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475287554
Page Count: 312
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Catchy title; too bad the psychothriller behind it—despite the publisher's big push—is a mostly routine tale of cop vs. serial-killer. And it's really too bad for Patterson (The Midnight Club, 1988, etc.) that William Diehl's new thriller, Primal Fear (reviewed above), covers some of the same territory with superior energy and skill. A few charms lift this above run-of-the-mill: Patterson's hero, D.C. psychologist/cop Alex Cross, is black, while his lover, Secret Service honcho Jezzie Flanagan, is white; and the narrative moves briskly by cutting between Cross's ambling account and a sharper third-person tracking, mostly of the killer's movements. He is Gary Soneji—a nobody living a deceptively quiet life as Gary "Murphy"—who has killed 200 people and now wants to commit the Crime of the Century and become Somebody: Soneji/Murphy snatches the daughter of a top actress and the son of the US secretary of the treasury. Enter Cross and Flanagan, whose bad luck at finding kids and kidnapper—who, taunting the cops, kills an FBI agent and gets away with a $10-million payoff, while one of the kids turns up dead—changes only when Soneji/Murphy, cracking up, holds hostage to a McDonald's and is wounded by a cop. Here, Patterson's tale begins to mirror Diehl's: Soneji/Murphy turns out to suffer from the same sensational psychosis as Diehl's villain; and in the ensuing trial, Soneji/Murphy's lawyer pursues a defense similar to that of Diehl's attorney-hero. But where Diehl's villain roars on the page, Soneji/Murphy barely smirks; and while Diehl's courtroom crackles with intelligence, Patterson's is almost transcript-dull. Patterson does wind up, however, with a fine noir twist. Cross is a likable hero, but with a watery plot and weak villain—Hannibal Lecter would eat Soneji for breakfast—he doesn't have much to work with here.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-316-69364-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A top-notch psychological thriller.
In Hoag’s (The 9th Girl, 2013, etc.) latest, talented young newscaster Dana Nolan is left to navigate a psychological maze after escaping a serial killer.
While recuperating at home in Shelby Mills, Indiana, Dana meets her former high school classmates John Villante and Tim Carver. Football hero Tim is ashamed of flunking out of West Point, and now he’s a sheriff’s deputy. After Iraq and Afghanistan tours, John’s home with PTSD, "angry and bitter and dark." Dana survived abduction by serial killer Doc Holiday, but she still suffers from the gruesome attack by "the man who ruined her life, destroyed her career, shattered her sense of self, damaged her brain and her face." What binds the trio is their friend Casey Grant, who's been missing five years, perhaps also a Holiday victim, even if "[t]he odds against that kind of coincidence had to be astronomical." Hoag’s first 100 pages are a gut-wrenching dissection of the aftereffects of traumatic brain injury: Dana is plagued by "[f]ear, panic, grief, and anger" and haunted by fractured memories and nightmares. "Before Dana had believed in the inherent good in people. After Dana knew firsthand their capacity for evil." Impulsive and paranoid, Dana obsesses over linking Casey’s disappearance to Holiday, with her misfiring brain convincing her that "finding the truth about what had happened to Casey [was] her chance of redemption." But then Hoag tosses suspects into the narrative faster than Dana can count: Roger Mercer, Dana’s self-absorbed state senator stepfather; Mack Villante, who left son John with "no memories of his father that didn’t include drunkenness and cruelty"; even Hardy, the hard-bitten, cancer-stricken detective who investigated Casey’s disappearance. Tense, tightly woven, with every minor character, from Dana’s fiercely protective aunt to Mercer’s pudgy campaign chief, ratcheting up the tension, Hoag’s narrative explodes with an unexpected but believable conclusion.
A top-notch psychological thriller.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-95454-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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