Great writing and rich detail combine for a gripping read.
A bookish librarian encounters danger and intrigue when he sets out in search of a lost Renaissance masterpiece rumored to possess strange powers, in Masello’s latest novel (Blood and Ice, 2009, etc.).
When the often veiled, recently widowed and extraordinarily wealthy Kathryn Van Owen approaches librarian and renaissance scholar David Franco with an opportunity to find a long-missing silver mirror made by the Florentine artist Cellini, she goes out of her way to make the search worth David’s while. First of all, there was the money—$1 million upon return of the mirror. There was also vague talk about how she, a generous donor to the library where Richard works, could help him secure a promotion. But what really intrigued David was Mrs. Van Owen’s suggestion that the mirror could somehow be used to cure David’s beloved sister, who is dying of cancer. At Mrs. Van Owen’s fervent urging, and using her considerable bankroll, David sets out immediately for Florence to pick up the trail. He meets Olivia, a spirited Florentine tour guide and scholar, who has a bad reputation among the Florentine scholarly set for her radical theories concerning the Nazis and their interest in the occult. The two join forces, and soon realize that they are not the only ones interested in the mirror, and that others are willing to kill in order to retrieve it—or protect its secrets. Interspersed with the chapters following David’s search are chapters which follow the artist Cellini’s involvement in the story, from the creation of the mirror, to the discovery of its powers by his favorite model, to his eventual trouble with Pope Paul, which led to the mirror’s loss. While the post–Da Vinci Code bookstore and/or library is bursting with novels about ancient secrets imbedded in renaissance art, this book is a few notches better than most, thanks to its crisp prose and drum-tight plotting. In addition to its taut story, there is an impressive amount of scholarship, and enough detail to please art lovers or history buffs.
Great writing and rich detail combine for a gripping read.Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-553-80779-0
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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