Slow moving and richly layered.
A retired cop takes one last case in this stand-alone novel from the creator of the Dublin Murder Squad.
Originally from North Carolina, Cal Hooper has spent the last 30 years in Chicago. “A small place. A small town in a small country”: That’s what he’s searching for when he moves to the West of Ireland. His daughter is grown, his wife has left him, so Cal is on his own—until a kid named Trey starts hanging around. Trey’s brother is missing. Everyone believes that Brendan has run off just like his father did, but Trey thinks there’s more to the story than just another young man leaving his family behind in search of money and excitement in the city. Trey wants the police detective who just emigrated from America to find out what’s really happened to Brendan. French is deploying a well-worn trope here—in fact, she’s deploying a few. Cal is a new arrival to an insular community, and he’s about to discover that he didn’t leave crime and violence behind when he left the big city. Cal is a complex enough character, though, and it turns out that the mystery he’s trying to solve is less shocking than what he ultimately discovers. French's latest is neither fast-paced nor action-packed, and it has as much to do with Cal’s inner life as it does with finding Brendan. Much of what mystery readers are looking for in terms of action is squeezed into the last third of the novel, and the morally ambiguous ending may be unsatisfying for some. But French’s fans have surely come to expect imperfect allegiance to genre conventions, and the author does, ultimately, deliver plenty of twists, shocking revelations, and truly chilling moments.
Slow moving and richly layered.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-73-522465-0
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A smart and engaging literary thriller that bears down too hard on its themes.
At the home of an eccentric millionaire, a woman discovers out-of-the-ordinary events.
When her husband is invited to finish writing his book at the island home of a reclusive millionaire, Anna is relieved: If he sells it, they’ll be able to keep their Bronx apartment and she won’t have to go back to work at the laundry. It’s 1918, and Charles Fort—based on a real-life figure—is hard at work on a book about unexplained phenomena, such as objects falling from a clear sky: frogs, for example, or even bits of flesh, or blood. If Anna has doubts about the legitimacy of his research, she keeps them to herself. In any case, when the millionaire Claude Arkel offers the couple a place to stay for the winter, they eagerly accept. Almost immediately, though, things seem to be off. Arkel runs a school for wayward girls, and three students are missing. Meanwhile, there’s no sign of Arkel himself, and with the Spanish flu raging in the outside world, the Forts are stuck in quarantine. Bakis’ latest novel has the pacing and suspense of a smart literary thriller: It’s almost impossible to put down once you’ve started it. But Bakis can be heavy-handed in her treatment of the themes that undergird her story—in this case, women who support ambitious men. That’s not to say Bakis’ case doesn’t hold water, but she strikes the same note again and again in a way that is more repetitive than satisfying. So, for example, when the Forts first arrive on Arkel’s island, and Charles observes that the grand house is “modeled on the Château de Chambord in the Val de Loire” and Anna responds, “I know, I’m the one who showed you the article,” the mansplaining moment isn’t nearly as funny as it was apparently intended to be; it's just frustrating, in a teeth-grinding way.
A smart and engaging literary thriller that bears down too hard on its themes.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781324093534
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Book clubs will find plenty to discuss in this meaty and challenging read.
Boyne’s ambitious novel powerfully explores the devastation of sexual abuse from four different perspectives.
“The elements—water, earth, fire, air—are our greatest friends, our animators. They feed us, warm us, give us life, and yet conspire to kill us at every juncture,” says Vanessa Carvin, who has fled to a remote island off the west coast of Ireland in the wake of a sex abuse scandal that led to her husband’s imprisonment, her alienation from her daughter, and public condemnation. Troubled Evan Keough, with his mother’s help, escapes this same island in the hopes of making a new life as a painter in England but instead finds himself on trial as an accomplice in the rape of a young woman. A juror on that trial, Dr. Freya Petrus, is a successful burn surgeon who deals with her childhood trauma by inflicting her pain on new victims. And her former resident–turned–child psychologist, Aaron Umber, seeks to heal his own damaged psyche by embarking on a life-changing journey back to Ireland with his teenage son. Originally published in the U.K. as separate novellas (Water, Earth, Fire, Air), these four interconnected stories pack a wallop when combined in one volume. If the format at times feels too tidy and contrived (especially in the final section), it doesn’t lessen the emotional impact of deeply wounded characters struggling to overcome their guilt and find redemption in the wake of catastrophic trauma.
Book clubs will find plenty to discuss in this meaty and challenging read.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250410368
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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