More scattershot and less inevitable-seeming than Goddard’s best work, but also sharper-edged than usual. Eldritch’s...
Goddard’s latest period suspenser (Sight Unseen, 2007, etc.) combines World War II, the Irish Troubles and a disreputable uncle.
Returning to England after resigning from both his position with an oil company and his American fiancée, Stephen Swan learns that he won’t be the only newcomer to his mother’s guest house in Paignton. Eldritch Swan, just released from an Irish prison after serving 36 years, has asked to stay with his late brother’s family, whom he’s never met, until he can get his feet beneath him. Uncle and nephew fail to bond. Apart from assuring Stephen that his prison term wasn’t for a violent crime and hinting that he was an innocent who was framed, Eldritch refuses to reveal why he’s been jailed since 1940; if he ever told a soul, he adds, he’d be sent back. His plan for getting on his feet doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Approached by a lawyer whose shadowy client is willing to pay £50,000 for proof that American tycoon Jay Brownlow’s collection of Picassos was stolen from Antwerp diamond merchant Isaac Meridor as he fled the approaching Nazis, Eldritch indicates that he’s the perfect man for the job—because he helped steal them. Goddard tacks back and forth between 1976 and 1940, dexterously raising new and deeper questions, then unfolding just enough of Eldritch’s colorful history to answer them, or at least to encourage both his nephew and Meridor’s granddaughter Rachel Banner to ever-greater complicity in his schemes. The suspect Eldritch fingers is unctuous, untouchable Miles Linley, now Sir Miles, for whom Eldritch fagged at school and for whom he ran an increasingly dodgy series of subdiplomatic errands as Hitler threatened Ireland and Churchill waited anxiously to see whether Eamon de Valera would support England, remain neutral or work for a German victory.
More scattershot and less inevitable-seeming than Goddard’s best work, but also sharper-edged than usual. Eldritch’s checkered career marks a welcome change from the author’s customary, sometimes oppressive, suavity.Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-34361-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Summer reading doesn't get better than this.
Hiding a teenage murder witness among a bunch of delinquent kids in a survival-training program in Montana seemed like a good idea. But when two coldblooded killers track him there from Indiana, everyone's life is at grave risk.
The program is run by Air Force veteran Ethan Serbin, who lives with his wife, Allison, in a mountain cabin. She distrusts Jamie Bennett, a federal marshal and former trainee of Ethan's who shows up in the middle of the night, having recklessly driven into a blizzard, to plead for their help. Jamie says the boy, Jace Wilson, is too hot for even a witness protection program. When Jace arrives, it's anonymously, under the name Connor Reynolds. He's badly lacking in confidence but proves adept in handling himself outdoors. Just as he's settling in, though, the killers—two brothers with a creepy way of conversing with each other even as they're about to commit an atrocity—infiltrate the mountain community. Knowing what they're capable of, Jace/Connor drifts away from the pack, teams up with a female fire ranger who feels responsible for her boyfriend's accidental death and fervently hopes an escape route he devised as part of his training will lead them to safety. Having joined the ranks of the very best thriller writers with his small-town masterpiece, The Prophet (2012), Koryta matches that effort with a book of sometimes-unbearable tension. With the exception of one plot turn you'll likely see coming from a mountain pass away, this novel is brilliantly orchestrated. Also crucial to its success is Koryta's mastery of the beautiful but threatening setting, including a mountain fire's ability to electrify the ground, radiate a lethal force field—and create otherworldly light shows.
Summer reading doesn't get better than this.Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-316-12255-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A suspenseful story that examines how families haunt each other in life and death; possibly too creepy for late-night...
A college professor returns to his hometown and confronts figurative and literal demons from his childhood in this modern-day ghost story.
The novel opens as Will Conner attends a faculty-student mixer in Manhattan and talks with his teaching assistant, Beth, about the return of some disturbing dreams he’s been having. The dreams contain flashbacks to a confusing night from his youth when his mother hosted a “spirit circle” in their home. Beth tries, unsuccessfully, to help Will understand the dreams. As Will walks home after the event, he receives a visit from an unearthly being, a demon or spirit, perhaps a hallucination, he’s not sure. He hurries the rest of the way to his apartment, where he is greeted by a ringing telephone and the news that his mother is in the hospital, unconscious. Will returns to his small New England hometown to care for his mother, who suffered a head injury. During his visit, he reconnects with a long list of characters from his childhood and tries to determine what happened on that fateful night from his youth that continues to haunt his dreams. Will begins to detect secrets about the people he grew up with and how those secrets may have impacted his own life. Yet, every time he moves closer to discovering the central mystery, another obstacle materializes to thwart his efforts and make him question his path. Written in a fast-paced, colloquial prose, the text will pull readers in right from the start. Drawing on New England’s historical connection to witchcraft and mob hysteria, the author brings to life contemporary covens and small-town reactions to the unexplainable. Despite the novel’s heavy emphasis on flashbacks and retelling of family folklore, which can feel overly convoluted, the author creates nuanced and realistic interpersonal relationships that lend much-needed grounding to this darkly supernatural story. Equal parts engaging and creepy, this twisty tale deftly examines how secrets and regret can continue to reverberate through generations.
A suspenseful story that examines how families haunt each other in life and death; possibly too creepy for late-night reading.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-335-21755-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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