Don’t expect any hint of optimism; read it if you dare!
In Dutch author Heuvelt’s English-language debut, a town haunted by a 17th-century witch uncovers the true face of evil—and it’s not supernatural.
Black Spring, New York, seems like many other picturesque towns near the Hudson River except for one feature: Katherine van Wyler, a woman who was executed for witchcraft in the 1600s but somehow remained to haunt the residents of the town and their descendants. The witch herself is a terrible sight: bound in chains, with her eyes and mouth sewn shut to prevent her from directly taking revenge on anyone, she nevertheless wields power over the town. Those who live there can never leave, because if they're absent for too long, they're overcome by suicidal urges. A group of Black Spring teenagers, led by Tyler Grant, decides to record their interactions with her, intending to post the truth across the Internet. Their desire to break the code of silence turns dangerous when one boy, himself the victim of domestic abuse, goes too far in humiliating Katherine, and someone dies. The town descends rapidly into chaos as Katherine takes her revenge and people begin to do unspeakable things. Heuvelt offers up a truly terrifying parable about mankind’s depravity and the depths of evil of which we are capable; his point, of course, is that little truly separates us from history’s most terrible moments, including the Puritan persecution of witches. The story is not merely unsettling, it is horrifying, and there is no redemption or image of hope in which one can find solace. But one cannot deny that it is well-done: the narrative stands up to some gaps in logic to persuade the reader that “civilized people” are only a few steps away from madness.
Don’t expect any hint of optimism; read it if you dare!Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7880-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Relax, enjoy, and marvel anew at the power of unbridled fictional invention.
Rejoice, fans of American madness who’ve sought fulfillment in political reportage. South Florida’s master farceur (Skink—No Surrender, 2014, etc.) is back to reassure you that fiction is indeed stranger than truth.
Even though a prefatory note indicates that both the come-hither title and the stuff about giant Gambian pouched rats are rooted in reality, no one but Hiaasen could have dreamed up the complications arising from the collision of Merry Mansfield with talent agent Lane Coolman—a literal collision, since she rams his rented car while shaving her bikini area in the driver's seat of a Firebird. Make that multiple collisions, since Lane turns out to be only the latest victim of Merry and her partner Zeto’s kidnap-for-hire schemes. In this case, he’s the wrong victim, mistaken for beach-replenishment contractor Martin Trebeaux, whose swindling has put him on the wrong side of Calzone crime family capo Dominick "Big Noogie" Aeola. Since Coolman’s being held captive, he can’t be on hand to walk his client Buck Nance, the reality star of Bayou Brethren, though a personal appearance at the Parched Pirate, and Buck goes off script into a racist rant that sparks a demonstration and sends him fleeing, though he's still capable of inspiring Benny Krill, a murderous apprentice racist who dreams of joining him on his show. After laboring in vain to persuade Jon David Ampergrodt, his boss at Platinum Artists Management, as well as Merry and Zeto that he’s worth ransoming, Coolman escapes, but it doesn’t matter: he’s still confined in the zoo that’s Key West, where liability lawyer Brock Richardson’s fiancee loses the $200,000 ring he didn’t bother to resize after his fatter former fiancee returned it, and when his neighbor, health inspector Andrew Yancy, discovers it, he hides it in the hummus in the hope that an indefinite search for the bauble will stall Richardson’s plan to build a McMansion that will obstruct Yancy’s sea view. Etc. How can Hiaasen possibly tie together all this monkey business in the end? His delirious plotting is so fine-tuned that preposterous complications that would strain lesser novelists fit right into his antic world.
Relax, enjoy, and marvel anew at the power of unbridled fictional invention.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-34974-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Good characters, keen social commentary, and propulsive action sequences with a bit too much tech jargon.
An extreme gamer who has concocted a scheme to monetize his expertise gets into trouble navigating a virtual world that starts to intrude on his real life.
Following in the footsteps of Ernie Cline, who hit the geek gold mine with Ready Player One (2011), Ruff (Lovecraft Country, 2016, etc.) takes his shot at a near-future gaming world that’s more grounded than most virtual-reality universes but also more complex. Our main protagonist is John Chu, the founder of Sherpa, Inc., a consulting firm that guides new gamers through a variety of mostly VR–based video games. He has good partners in Jolene, a more mature African American gamer who won’t take any of his shit, and Anja, a brilliant young player whose permanent injury has left her on life support, albeit with thought-controlled access to the VR world. Unfortunately, he also has a nemesis in Darla Jean Covington, his virtual ex-girlfriend, who is clearly holding a grudge. The kicker comes when Chu is approached by a man named Smith on behalf of a pseudonymous client named Mr. Jones, who wishes to pay him an astonishing $100,000 per week for his exclusive services. Lurking in the background is Ms. Pang, an enigmatic Chinese woman who might be a spy. Soon Chu begins to suspect that his mysterious client is actually North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Fortunately, Chu has some backup from his mother, who’s a member of a secretive anti-terrorist task force called Zero Day, and an absent father who pulls his weight when he needs to. It’s a pretty good thriller, but it’s also very much a book for gamers by gamers. If acronyms like MMORPG, PvP, or PPML throw you for a loop, this might not be the ride for you. Gamers for life who can pry themselves off the controller will certainly dig this digital-era whodunit.
Good characters, keen social commentary, and propulsive action sequences with a bit too much tech jargon.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-285467-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
