Like the Glass House itself, this novel is “a tiger’s enclosure, with nowhere to hide” and with a constant undercurrent of...
In Ware’s debut, a reclusive crime writer reunites with a long-lost friend during a weekend hen party that goes horribly wrong.
When Leonora Shaw wakes up in the hospital with memory gaps and a head wound, one of the first questions she asks is, “What have I done?” Through flashbacks, Ware slowly unspools the mystery, setting a truly spooky scene as six relative strangers gather at the isolated Glass House, celebrating the upcoming marriage of Nora’s former friend Clare Cavendish, with whom she had lost touch 10 years before. Nora, sensitive and skittish and nursing some great secret about her past and her lost friendship with Clare, wants nothing more than to leave, but she feels trapped by curiosity, guilt, and obligation to Flo, the woman who planned the weekend and takes any complication as a personal affront. In classic Agatha Christie fashion, the first half of the novel is masterful in the slow build of suspense. Clearly, something is very wrong, but it’s unclear whether it’s Nora, Clare, Flo, or some outside intruder who is responsible for the chills and the deepening unease. Unfortunately, as Nora’s memory returns, the truth and the climax ultimately disappoint, and Nora’s timidity and secrecy become frustrating. The final reveal is pretty predictable. However, the success of the first half of the novel does speak to Ware’s ability to spin a good yarn. Recalling such classics as And Then There Were None, she creates a unique setting for the psychological scares, and her characters, while somewhat stock, have enough depth to fool even savvy mystery fans for a while.
Like the Glass House itself, this novel is “a tiger’s enclosure, with nowhere to hide” and with a constant undercurrent of danger. Read it on a dark and stormy night—with all the lights on.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1231-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Suspenseful, glamorous story of love, blackmail, and magic, set in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., about a family of high-class magicians practicing the time-honored profession of thievery. When magician Maxmillian Nouvelle adopts the 12-year-old runaway Luke Callahan, he gives him more than a family: He teaches him the secrets of blending what's real and what's not...giving people what they want—and also taking what they value. For the Great Nouvelle is a master jewel-thief; stealing from the undeserving rich warms his blood like the anticipation of good sex, a passion that both Luke and Max's bratty daughter Raxanne eventually share. Thirteen years pass: As Luke practices the fine arts of larceny and escapology, Roxanne grows into a flame-haired witch who turns bell, book, and candle into smoke onstage. Offstage, she trades in her David Cassidy poster for Luke; together, they set off sparks that could make an innocent bystander..go up in flames. But Luke's invincibility, like the Great Houdini's, is deceptive: Slimy Sam Wyatt—a former grifter now running for the Senate—slithers in from Luke's past, his frigid heart full of contempt for the family he once tried to seam. He threatens to frame Luke for murder and expose the Nouvelles' after-hours show unless he disappears. Five years later, a homesick Luke reappears, determined to show the disillusioned Roxanne that he's more than smoke and mirrors. Together, they set out to plot vengeance, staking everything on their most daring sting to date. True to the magician's oath, Roberts reveals no secrets, but the illusion works—in a compelling and detail-rich first hardcover. Good escape reading.
Pub Date: July 17, 1992
ISBN: 0-399-13761-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1992
Beah draws on both his life and imagination to depict children leading brave, provisional lives.
Five grifter children band together, holed up in an abandoned fuselage in Zimbabwe.
We meet Beah's protagonists as an unnamed narrator glimpses a boy in a Zimbabwean forest before the boy slips away. The child has heard an elaborate whistle and answered it, the all-clear of four adolescents and one small girl surviving by their wits. Elimane, Khoudiemata, Ndevui, Kpindi, and Namsa have come together to shelter in the remains of a crashed airplane covered with foliage. But these are no boxcar children—each day they fan out to scam and steal their daily portion with a zest that Dickens’ Fagin would admire. They sneer at government workers along the road: “The census meant nothing. It was just another ploy that let those in power pretend that something was being done.” It’s an ingenious setup from the author of A Long Way Gone (2007), a memoir of Beah's harrowing coming-of-age in Sierra Leone as a child soldier. That book created a sensation—though some questioned its accuracy, Beah stands by his story—and his fiction is clearly informed by both his experiences with trauma and as a Los Angeles–based married father of three. When his characters become entangled with a crime syndicate midbook, their deeds grow graver, and the children blot out their fear with ganja and alcohol: “They were upset about not only what they had taken part in, but what it stirred up for them as well.” As the rainy season resumes, their old plane leaks more each year. Khoudiemata, perhaps the cleverest in the little family, starts a beach flirtation with a clique of rich young elites, who declare she is “fresh, original, real, and mysteriously unusual in a great way.” The awkwardness of that phrase conveys the belabored writing that occasionally detracts from the story. Still, readers will be drawn to discover what befalls a group fending for itself amid conflict and crime.
Beah draws on both his life and imagination to depict children leading brave, provisional lives.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1177-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
