In this novel inspired by his own experiences in Jamaica and England, first-time author Brown weaves a story of brotherhood, friendship and ambition gone awry.
At the dawn of the new millennium, brothers Junior and Menny and their friend Moses are smoking marijuana and reading their favorite biblical psalms under an apple tree in St. Mary, Jamaica. They live hand-to-mouth lives, but the young men are dreamers; they all have hopes as high as the sky and a tremendous amount of ambition. The idea of moving to England is never far from their minds. Of the two brothers, Junior’s dreams revolve more around making money and having a big, beautiful house, while Menny, a talented singer, wants to use his gift to spread word of the Rastafarian movement and help continue the black struggle, in the tradition of Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King Jr. Eventually, the young men make their way to England, but their ambitions lead them down a dark path of crime, as they fall in with Kingston-born gangsters Reload and Serius, whose goal is to make money by any means necessary. The best part of Brown’s book is the dialogue, which is fortunate, since there’s a lot of it. He clearly has an ear for speech, and he adeptly captures voices for Jamaicans and Englishmen alike. Especially enjoyable are the phone conversations laid out on the page like a script without stage directions. The book becomes as much about personalities and voices as the fading dreams, and it’s all a pleasure to read.
A memorable novel with an authentic voice.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-1462881475
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | THRILLER | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER
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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Our contemporary Agatha Christie offers up her version of And Then There Were None when 11 people are stranded in a ritzy ski chalet and begin dying one by one.
By the numbers, the streaming app Snoop is devastatingly successful, and the company is on the cusp of a major buyout—if the shareholders vote to take this route. The founders, Topher and Eva, are torn, and the other three shareholders are being courted to choose sides. Most of the pressure falls on Liz, an awkward outlier when compared with the glamorous, beautiful people who head up the company. Though she doesn't work directly for Snoop anymore, Liz is included in the leadership retreat: It's her and eight other board members at a lush, remote French ski chalet for a little powder, a little pampering, and a little back-channel business. Erin and Danny, the caretakers of the chalet, notice tension among the members of the Snoop group from the beginning, but overall it seems like just another wealthy, entitled corporate gathering. The weather on top of the mountain grows increasingly dangerous, and when nine people go out to ski and only eight return, fear and suspicion begin to grow. Then there's an avalanche, and the chalet is cut off from contact with the outside world. Soon, another group member dies, apparently poisoned, and then another is murdered because of something she saw. The survivors must split up to search for help before there's no one left. Alternating chapters between Liz's and Erin’s points of view, Ware does what she does best: Gives us a familiar locked-door mystery setup and lets the tension and suspicion marinate until they reach fever pitch. Another win for Ware and her adaptations of classic mystery traditions.
The solution is maddeningly simple but the construction, simply masterful.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-8881-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE
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