The characters are thinly defined in this thriller, but the pace is nonstop.
The gritty violence of a human-trafficking ring in Atlanta takes center stage in the second volume of this romantic suspense series.
Kiernan-Lewis (Wit’s End, 2016, etc.) brings back the detective duo of Mia Kazmaroff and Jack Burton, whom she introduced in 2014’s Reckless. The two quickly find themselves in danger after they agree to help José, an injured Hispanic man; he escaped from kidnappers and is trying to find his abductee sister, Maria. Just hours after José bunks down in Jack’s house for the night, he’s murdered and the place is burned to the ground. Jack wants to find the killer, and Mia wants to hunt for Maria, who, it turns out, is undergoing a hellish experience as a sex slave. Naturally, the two goals dovetail. Jack is a former police officer and now a part-time personal chef; Mia is an unemployed civilian with an unusual gift: she’s “able to tell the history and genus of any object just by touching it.” They teamed up after working to solve the murder of Mia’s brother, Dave, who’d been Jack’s partner in the Atlanta police department. That’s about all the back story readers get about the couple; however, their underlying sexual tension and constant bickering—not to mention the appearance of a rival for Mia’s affection—keep their dance interesting. Ultimately, though, the overall lack of character development restricts the novel to surface-level action. This is a plot-driven thriller that offers constant twists—some expected but others unanticipated. Kiernan-Lewis offers enough red herrings to keep readers guessing, as almost all the bit players are potential suspects in the trafficking conspiracy. Are the leads provided by Liz Magnuson, the head of Atlantans Against Modern Slavery, legitimate? Is Trey Bowers from the Atlanta field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement really a government agent? The final surprise should make fans want a sequel.
The characters are thinly defined in this thriller, but the pace is nonstop.Pub Date: June 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5002-2128-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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