A haunting horror novel set in a dire wasteland.
In Thomas’ horror novel, a loner battles against evil in a frozen world.
The nondescript Sebastian Pana lives in the margins of a remote Arctic community. “To the naked eye, I am an elderly man, at the edge of town, constantly chopping wood, planting strange bushes and flowers when the ground isn’t frozen, a smile and a wave as hunters pass by with their kills.” In reality, though, Sebastian is a sin-eater, a shaman who helps the unsettled dead pass over to the other side. It’s a lonely existence, and one that ages him rapidly, but he’s made a friend in Kallik, the boy who helps him with his garden. Then something different—a new kind of evil—appears in his frozen home. Sebastian does what he can to keep it from destroying the unsuspecting community around him, but does he still have the strength? And, if not, who will take his place? Meanwhile, a “mother of monsters” stalks the land, a sentient beast mating with otherworldly creatures and bearing unearthly children. Thomas excels at summoning nightmarish images, as vivid as they are stark: “When I look out the back window, the praying form that I left kneeling in the ice and snow has been torn to shreds,” Sebastian narrates. “Blood stains the snow in the dim moonlight, as limbs are scattered in the clearing, up the trail, and off into the woods, long smears and bloodstains that appear black in the darkness.” The most terrifying aspects of the novel, however, stem from its strange, shifting structure, which never quite allows the reader to find firm footing. This is not the conventional sort of horror novel in which something monstrous intrudes upon a recognizable reality; instead, the very fabric of Thomas’ world is fragile and subject to reorganization. Fans of Brian Evenson will enjoy—and perhaps cower from—this cold-weather tale.
A haunting horror novel set in a dire wasteland.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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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