The lead’s dual personality gives readers two absorbing characters, regardless of who can or can’t see them.
Psychotherapist Stosny’s (Soar Above, 2016, etc.) first foray into fiction is a dark thriller following a man who, despite an iffy grasp on reality, hunts sex traffickers.
Henry One isn’t merely hearing a voice in his head as shrinks have suggested. He’s sharing his body with Henry Two. The latter has a life outside the apartment, while One has been a recluse for the last 10 years since his superiors at Our Lady of Good Counsel asked him to leave the priesthood. The personalities argue constantly. When Two mocks One for his earlier, agonizing experience at the church, One tries to kill him. Doctors, of course, consider it a suicide attempt and send Henry to the Saints of Mercy Mission, a home for former clergy with mental health issues. Tensions decrease between the personalities, and though their collective reality is gradually unraveling inside the mission, they’re both anxious when they hear about its imminent closure. Being outside for the first time in two decades, however, gives them a chance to concentrate on what’s tangible, especially strange new technologies like iPhones and Google. But they discover their true focus when reading about sex-trafficking operations involving children. Convinced the ringleaders have multiple personalities, One and Two think they can help the FBI find them. Stosny’s integration of dual personalities into the storyline helps the novel stand out, and the disorder becomes more than just a convenient plot device. Readers, for example, may forget Two isn’t actually there; characters often note Henry’s tendency to say “we” when referring to himself; and from Henry One’s perspective, Two genuinely snatches a torn magazine out of his hands. Outside forces typically spur the plot twists. The story gets gloomier and more harrowing in the final act, but narrator Henry One provides slivers of light throughout with a cynical but earnest voice: “Reality is a lot harder than I imagined.” Stosny’s typically dry descriptions provide a counterpoint to the plot’s somber content, like simply noting a children’s toothpaste commercial that follows a TV report on child sex-trafficking victims.
The lead’s dual personality gives readers two absorbing characters, regardless of who can or can’t see them.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 188
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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