Good cops, rogue cops, and unscrupulous pharmaceutical CEOs duke it out in this near-miss technothriller from normally reliable Pearson (No Witnesses, 1994, etc.). Three years ago, Hartford Detective Joe Dartelli kept quiet about a suspicious suicide because he was convinced the victim was the Ice Man, who'd raped and killed the wife of his mentor, legendary Sgt. Walter Zeller. Now Dart is heading another suicide investigation with some eerily similar signs: an impossible physical scenario, some telltale hormonal imbalances, and the same background on the victim, another sex offender. Could the Ice Man be alive and prowling again? Or could it be, as Dart's investigation suggests, that somebody's declared open season on child molesters and domestic abusers in the greater Hartford area? In fact, could the killer be Zeller, come out of retirement to avenge his murdered wife? No sooner has Dart thought of his old boss than Zeller surfaces in a series of tantalizing phone messages``They took their own lives, but they're not suicides...Sometimes the enemy is within''and tricks his old buddies into compromising the best physical evidence against him. So far, so chillingand when Dart ties those hormonal imbalances in to a gene-therapy experiment funded by nefarious Roxin Labs, the stage seems set for one of Pearson's patented action-cum- ethical-debate showdowns. This time, though, what he substitutes is action-cum-more-action, as Zeller and Dart, spooked by a gratuitous flashback to his own abused childhood, duke it out in the dark shadows of Roxin Labs, then join forces to destroy a conspiracy that could mean the end of criminal justice as sex offenders know it. Pearson soars before he fizzles, thanks to a high-concept premise and his usual daunting mastery of forensics, computers, and blood chemistry. His fans probably won't even notice when the brains in this page-turner turn into testosterone. ($250,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 1995
ISBN: 0-7868-6172-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. "Superflu" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization—excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God—or the Devil. The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as "the dark man" or "the Walking Dude" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fans will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1978
ISBN: 0307743683
Page Count: 1450
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1978
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Locke, having stockpiled an acclaimed array of crime novels (Pleasantville, 2015, etc.), deserves a career breakthrough for...
What appears at first to be a double hate crime in a tiny Texas town turns out to be much more complicated—and more painful—than it seems.
With a degree from Princeton and two years of law school under his belt, Darren Mathews could have easily taken his place among the elite of African-American attorneys. Instead, he followed his uncle’s lead to become a Texas Ranger. “What is it about that damn badge?” his estranged wife, Lisa, asks. “It was never intended for you.” Darren often wonders if she’s right but nonetheless finds his badge useful “for working homicides with a racial element—murders with a particularly ugly taint.” The East Texas town of Lark is small enough to drive through “in the time it [takes] to sneeze,” but it’s big enough to have had not one, but two such murders. One of the victims is a black lawyer from Chicago, the kind of crusader-advocate Darren could have been if he’d stayed on his original path; the other is a young white woman, a local resident. Both battered bodies were found in a nearby bayou. His job already jeopardized by his role in a race-related murder case in another part of the state, Darren eases his way into Lark, where even his presence is enough to raise hackles among both the town’s white and black residents; some of the latter, especially, seem reluctant and evasive in their conversations with him. Besides their mysterious resistance, Darren also has to deal with a hostile sheriff, the white supremacist husband of the dead woman, and the dead lawyer’s moody widow, who flies into town with her own worst suspicions as to what her husband was doing down there. All the easily available facts imply some sordid business that could cause the whole town to explode. But the deeper Darren digs into the case, encountering lives steeped in his home state’s musical and social history, the more he begins to distrust his professional—and personal—instincts.
Locke, having stockpiled an acclaimed array of crime novels (Pleasantville, 2015, etc.), deserves a career breakthrough for this deftly plotted whodunit whose writing pulses throughout with a raw, blues-inflected lyricism.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-36329-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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