A thoroughly effective horror page-turner from an author who’s mastered the genre.
Drago follows up his debut novel (Crow Creek, 2014) with another tale of small-town horror in the tradition of Stephen King.
Drago’s adroit and adrenaline-fueled second novel begins when a gaunt man in a hospital gown staggers into a small-town diner and begins vomiting “dark gristle.” The man has empty sockets where his eyes should be, and his body is studded with electrode ports. And as fast as you can say “illicit genetic experimentation,” we learn the man had once been an employee of EnTech, an experimental microbiology outfit located in the North Carolina town of Queensboro. EnTech is run by Drago’s truly hissable villainess, Margaret Ganis, who has “a high tuft of snow white hair and an unmistakable vascular birthmark across the left side of her face that looked like a red harpy’s wing” and whose skin “seems to bubble under the surface with tiny maggots.” When a local girl named Ashley Smith goes missing and some townsfolk assemble to search for her, they’re shockingly introduced to yet more evidence of dark biological tampering: seal-sized “death worms” that can suck the blood out of a grown human in seconds. Drago expertly balances the visceral thrills of such inhuman creatures against the far more premeditated evils of Ganis and her law enforcement henchman, Sheriff Waylon Osbourne, a hugely fat and wisecracking prominent Klan member who is, against all odds, the most enjoyable of the novel’s many well-drawn characters. Drago incorporates the cast (and some events) from his first novel so seamlessly that this book can be read independently, and although he still relies a bit too heavily on an array of Stephen King–style gimmicks (overly simplistic local yokels, especially; actual small-town residents will have to read this stuff with the usual forbearance), his dialogue crackles with wit, and his sense of dramatic pacing never fails him. In traditional horror-genre style, Drago orchestrates a climactic confrontation between the forces of good and evil that leaves much of Queensboro in ruins—and will leave readers very much wanting more from this author.
A thoroughly effective horror page-turner from an author who’s mastered the genre.Pub Date: April 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0692411278
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Gold Avenue Press
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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