A story like wildfire—starts cool but only gets hotter.
In McManus’ debut thriller, a blogger whose writing has been tracking an arsonist-turned-killer may be so close to his subject that he becomes a target.
Blogger Danny Kasho is the one who gave the Angeles Arsonist his name, dubbing the unknown individual known for setting wildfires in California. After 10 months of idleness, the arsonist returns, but this time there are five bodies, and it’s clear the arsonist is also a killer, having used a flamethrower to trap the victims in a cave with his latest inferno. Danny may have a scoop when friend Mark Pavelko, a U.S. Forest Service special agent, enlists his help in questioning a person of interest, arson investigator Mike Cruz. As it turns out, Mike suggests that Mark is the arsonist. The killer, meanwhile, following Danny’s blog on CODA.com, may be going after the journalist next. McManus’ thriller keeps a leisurely but engaging pace. Danny, for example, in true-to-life form, has to wait for most of his information, like the fact that the vics were Pepperdine students and there may have been a sixth person, who survived. McManus slowly and deliberately builds suspense, providing readers with the killer’s perspective as he posts comments on Danny’s blog. Danny, who has good reason to suspect both Mark and Mike of being the Angeles Arsonist, has a delectably murky back story: he knows it’s only a matter of time before someone realizes he’s the son of “Killer Kasho,” a murderer who was imprisoned years ago. Details of Danny’s family, including his mother’s abandonment of her children, gradually come to light as the story progresses. The downtempo plot pays off, making unexpected moments all the more startling, particularly when Danny comes face to face with the arsonist, in full fireman regalia, aiming a homemade flamethrower right at him. On the lighter side, heated banter between Danny and rival blogger Ursula occasionally goes on for too long. But McManus scores with his satire; Danny’s video chat appearance on an overwrought cable show is especially hilarious.
A story like wildfire—starts cool but only gets hotter.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9964485-0-5
Page Count: 452
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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