A sardonic, down-to-earth protagonist eases readers into a world of magic.
In this supernatural thriller, a warlock in Britain, helping the government ensnare his own kind, may have stumbled upon a revolution in the works.
Jameson Parker’s a warlock who made it out of the Dark Times as an employee of Whitehall. The era was so named after magicians, having kept their powers hidden for centuries, suddenly became territorial and starting fighting one another. Whitehall then sought warlocks to destroy, or as in the case of Parker, make turncoats to track down others. Parker’s latest case involves finding an arsonist who’s clearly been using magic to burn down 15 buildings. Parker makes headway with a basic tracking spell, which he can only use after asking Whitehall for permission. Identifying the arsonist, however, may not answer everything. Rogue magician Kaitlyn van Ives, for one, suggests that an enigmatic figure known as The Rider is truly behind all the fires. But Kaitlyn herself may have orchestrated the scheme, regardless of her goal—somehow policing the magical underworld—that’s akin to Whitehall’s. Parker soon realizes that free magicians (warlocks not under the government’s thumb) are planning to rebel by storming and overthrowing Whitehall. And they may be looking to Parker, whose insubordination makes him “a symbol of disobedience,” as the one to champion their objective. Despite brimming with magic and magicians, the novel is closer in spirit to a hard-boiled detective story. Parker’s first-person voice, for example, is relentlessly cynical, readily admitting (quite often) that he’s a “dickhead.” It’s fitting that, for Parker and the warlocks surrounding him, the supernatural is second nature. Peacock (Ghosts on the Wind, 2015, etc.), accordingly, concentrates on mystery and intrigue, and pinpointing a villain (or villains) amid multiple double crosses is what fuels the narrative. Parker mocks his “keen detective skills,” but his willingness to employ elements of the mundane world—like, say, a gun—is what aligns him with the traditional and recognizable gumshoe character. He’s even aware of his cinematic potential, blasting AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” his literary soundtrack for an inevitable Whitehall confrontation. The author ties off the story’s biggest thread but leaves plenty for Parker to resolve in future books.
A sardonic, down-to-earth protagonist eases readers into a world of magic.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-910142-01-1
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Magister Books
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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