A substantial thriller and a profound story of a woman recovering from abuse: two threads that complement each other...
In Barnes’ (And Still, She Wept, 2014, etc.) thriller, an FBI agent who has survived a harrowing experience with a serial killer finds another case in her hometown, where pageant contestants are being abducted.
FBI profiler Kayleen Archer’s last case nearly killed her. Serial murderer Richard Allan Estes, the man the feds were pursuing, left her alive but only after extensive torture and after killing herFBI partner and lover. Kayleen, on indefinite leave from the FBI and plagued by nightmares, takes refuge in Archdale, North Carolina, from which she fled 11 years ago, leaving behind her childhood friend and eventualboyfriend, Caleb Stone. Caleb, now the sheriff, wants Kayleen’s expertise with the case of 9-year-old Andie, who’d been found dead after disappearing from an illustrious 10-day beauty pageant. Kayleen quickly brings the investigation to a close, but another contestant is soon missing. This one, however, is different and seems to involve a killer who’s much more ruthlessly systematic and, to the horror of still-recovering Kayleen, reminiscent of Estes. At the same time, Kayleen suspects someone is watching her and may have been in her house, but her incessant drinking makes it impossible to know for sure. In some ways, the author’s protagonist resembles a world-weary detective; she chain-smokes and has become a full-fledged alcoholic, her breakfast often consisting of vodka and splashes of orange juice. But what makes Kayleen such an admirable character is that, however much she struggles, she endures. Her emotional scars render any reignited romance with Caleb, who still pines for her, a near impossibility, and her physical scars are brutally inescapable—she can actually feel her scars scratching her bed’s silk sheets. Barnes smartly implies that most of the torture Kayleen suffered was at the hands of Estes, though enough is relayed through dreams and flashbacks—e.g., hinting at the killer’s “tool bag of terrors”—that even the most seasoned reader might recoil. Beauty pageants aren’t portrayed in the best light: The girls’ parents don’t want the pageant shut down despite one murder and a possible second, and a girl who’s barely a teen being overtly sexualized during a performance makes Kayleen uncomfortable. The inevitable confrontation between the protagonist and the killer becomes a dramatic, suspenseful episode.
A substantial thriller and a profound story of a woman recovering from abuse: two threads that complement each other astonishingly well.Pub Date: April 6, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 470
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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