Unevenly paced, stomach-churning psychological horror not for the faint of heart.
After an accident, a young man starts to have violent and twisted thoughts.
Melvin Frink is a neuropsych student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore with an obsessive interest in the science of lobotomy, hoping to research the procedure and bring it back to the forefront of psychological treatment. With a seemingly meek and nerdy disposition, Melvin has an abusive, controlling, rich mother who keeps him on a short leash, but he wants to get away one day. His hopes are dashed when after a freak accident, he spends three years in a coma and wakes up to find himself trapped and still under his mother’s control. As his mind struggles to adapt, Clark’s protagonist begins to have violent urges toward women and especially his mother. As he regains control of his body and mind, he concocts a plan that will ensure that his mother and other women will never again humiliate or control him. The plan involves an operating table and cages in the basement of his family’s mansion, a place that used to hold a crematory and that will be where he keeps the girls he intends to kidnap quiet and subservient. But Melvin didn’t count on a campus police force willing to go the extra mile to track down girls who have recently gone missing or that he would find the perfect, willing victim in the most unexpected place. An omniscient narrator follows these and other characters in a twisted, dark psychological terror story. Full of graphic sexual and physical violence that at times crosses the line into gratuitous imagery, the story focuses primarily on Melvin, his tormented life, and the violence he inflicts on others. Both victim and perpetrator, he embodies a cycle of psychopathic abuse at the intersection of nurture and nature. The uneven pacing—slow at first, especially when describing the torture of the female victims, but rushed toward the end—further limits the appeal of a grisly tale.
Unevenly paced, stomach-churning psychological horror not for the faint of heart.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2021
ISBN: 979-8779134583
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.
Following her father’s sudden death, Aisling Swann is secretly horrified when her mother begins to date again—and she quickly becomes suspicious of this new flame.
Four years ago: A mysterious male narrator reflects upon his relationship with his wife—along with a few pointed comments about how she is aging. It quickly becomes apparent that this self-proclaimed “very pleasant” man is not who he seems; he already has a girlfriend on the side, and he’s playing both women with sob stories about his job and his traumatic past while taking money from them. Even as they get more and more frustrated with his lack of communication during ever-lengthening absences, he still gives them what they want: “a top-notch husband.” In the present day, Ash Swann; her brother, Arlo; and their mother, Nina, mourn the loss of her charismatic father, Paddy, a successful chef with a chain of lucrative restaurants. Nina receives a sympathy note from a man who claims to have worked closely with Paddy in the industry, which leads to a robust online flirtation that moves into the real world about a year after her husband’s death. Ash is living at home, mired in grief as well as her own mental health struggles, and she’s none too happy to see her mom dating—but particularly this handsome, egregiously suave Nick Radcliffe. Ash begins to notice some inconsistencies with his stories and his past, so she enlists Paddy’s ex-girlfriend Jane to help her investigate. Meanwhile, Ash’s story continues to intercut that of the mysterious man who is now married to his former girlfriend—and still up to his old tricks. Jewell’s cutting between past and present certainly allows revelations to ooze out at a slow, controlled pace; even as the reader makes obvious connections, the full picture remains obscure. Jewell has written some incredibly engaging and strong female characters, Nina, Ash, and Jane foremost among them. What would it have been like to split the narrative between them instead of giving so much voice—and thus narrative power—to the male antagonist?
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781668033876
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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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