Here's an unusual fiction debut: a formulaic but tight and swift serial-killer thriller—by a professor of philosophy of science and medicine (at the Univ. of Missouri). Munson's background, which also includes teaching at Harvard Medical School's Dept. of Psychiatry, shows in his rich display of forensic detail and in his careful construction of the bent mind of the killer, John Haack. Calling himself ``the Jaguar,'' and believing himself some sort of Mayan god, Haack, a formerly abused child now working in a Cambridge bookstore, has been terrorizing that town by stalking young women, then scattering their headless corpses. Leading the hunt for Haack is Lieutenant Eric Firecaster, an appealingly thoughtful hero who once studied philosophy at Harvard, while caught between the two is Haack's unwitting next mark, Jill Brenner, a free-lance journalist who, like the killer's past victims, patronizes his bookstore. After Haack begins toying with Jill—following her, breaking into her apartment—she goes to the cops and meets Firecaster, who immediately falls for her (the feeling is mutual) and pegs her as a likely Jaguar target. But Firecaster isn't around to protect Jill when Haack smuggles an apparently deadly snake into her bedroom, or comes after her at Firecaster's house—two suspenseful attacks that Jill escapes by dint of her refreshingly resilient wits. A would-be suitor of Jill's fares less well when a jealous Jaguar kidnaps him to his lair beneath an abandoned hospital wing, to torture and kill; the same lair provides the spookily gothic setting for a long, tense climax as Haack, disguised as a character from Dune, lures Jill out of an sf convention she's covering—with Firecaster in close pursuit.... Lacks the psychological depth of, say, Thomas Harris, but vivid characters and a hurtling plotline add up to sleek and sure escapist entertainment, just right for its beach-time publication date.
Pub Date: July 9, 1991
ISBN: 0-671-73024-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1991
The Stand did less well than The Shining, and The Dead Zone will do less well than either—as the King of high horror (Carrie) continues to move away from the grand-gothic strain that once distinguished him from the other purveyors of psychic melodrama. Here he's taken on a political-suspense plot formula that others have done far better, giving it just the merest trappings of deviltry. Johnnie Smith of Cleaves Mills, Maine, is a super-psychic; after a four-year coma, he has woken up to find that he can see the future—all of it except for certain areas he calls the "dead zone." So Johnnie can do great things, like saving a friend from death-by-lightning or reuniting his doctor with long-lost relatives. But Johnnie also can see a horrible presidential candidate on the horizon. He's Mayor Gregory Aromas Stillson of Ridgeway, N.H., and only Johnnie knows that this apparently klutzy candidate is really the devil incarnate—that if Stillson is elected he'll become the new Hitler and plunge the world into atomic horror! What can Johnnie do? All he can do is try to assassinate this Satanic candidate—in a climactic shootout that is recycled and lackluster and not helped by King's clumsy social commentary (". . . it was as American as The Wonderful Worm of Disney"). Johnnie is a faceless hero, and never has King's banal, pulpy writing been so noticeable in its once-through-the-typewriter blather and carelessness. Yes, the King byline will ensure a sizeable turnout, but the word will soon get around that the author of Carrie has this time churned out a ho-hum dud.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1979
ISBN: 0451155750
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1979
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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