An original but flawed thriller that never rises to the level of chilly.
In this debut novel from Norway, an 11-year-old girl goes missing more than a decade after connected events involving a troubled young woman who sleeps with her pet python.
The little girl, Iben, disappears from a supermarket in 2017 after her mother, Mariam, refuses to buy her a zombie comic book. Mariam, who is married to a politician, responds strangely to the disappearance, which is investigated, along with Mariam's behavior, by an aging cop with a checkered past. Back in 2003, Liv, who was abused by her older brother when they were kids (she was then known as Sara—not her last name change), finds solace—and sexual gratification—in the scaly company of her demanding python, Nero, who must be fed with ever larger living things. Her human friend Anita, a new mother beaten by her husband, turns to Liv for help. Mariam later becomes part of this vicious cycle when she is raped, resulting in the birth of her daughter. Ulstein's provocative treatment of brutal male behavior, including an approving reference to female spiders devouring their male partners, can be powerful. But populated by many unpleasant characters doing unpleasant things, the novel loses focus at critical times. It's not enough that the increasingly large and hungry Nero commits an unmentionable nasty incident that upstages everything. Ulstein also feels compelled to include periodic first-person commentary from the python, who ironically but not inaccurately calls Liz "the cold woman."
An original but flawed thriller that never rises to the level of chilly.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5886-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Sharply drawn characters, a “locked-room” location, and a tension-filled WWII setting illuminate this wartime thriller.
During World War II, a female police officer investigates a spate of murders on a tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Oren’s novel opens arrestingly with a local police captain discovering a fisherman’s unexpected catch of a human body. Then, an initial assessment of death by drowning goes distinctly south when it turns out that the man was strangled. Things only get trickier from there since it’s wartime, 1944, and the corpse is that of a prisoner of war: The island, along with its docks, trawlers, and cranberry bogs, includes a prison camp of Italian POWs and a U.S. military emplacement headed by a lieutenant who’d prefer to be on the front lines (his wealthy family ensures that he’s not). To complicate matters further—especially when another murder victim emerges—the police captain is Mary Beth Swann, who took over her husband’s law enforcement role when he shipped out to the South Pacific. Being a female police officer was already challenging enough; Mary Beth, originally from Boston, also has to tolerate the disrespect of the island’s inhabitants. What elevates this intriguing story—comparisons with television’s always engaging Foyle’s War are inevitable—are the wonderfully delineated specifics of the location and characters. This island may be fictional, but it’s drawn directly from the author’s experiences on Nantucket, and each of the characters sparkles with their own vitality, including the town’s brothel madam, the Acadian short-order cook missing two fingers, a visiting gangster, and the nearly 90 Italians waiting out the war in a remote corner of a foreign land.
Sharply drawn characters, a “locked-room” location, and a tension-filled WWII setting illuminate this wartime thriller.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-950539-60-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dzanc
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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