A flawed but memorable novel about a vigilante priest.
In Hogan’s latest novel, a conflicted priest takes God’s justice into his own hands.
Pittsburgh, 2000. Gabe Russell isn’t your average Catholic priest. At 26, he’s one of the youngest priests in the country to have a parish of his own. The teens love his sermons. He practices Krav Maga. In his spare time, he’s working on a novel with the help of Michelle Carlisle, the writing instructor he met while still in the seminary. Michelle is married, but a strong attachment has formed between the two of them—and it seems to be about more than just Gabe’s engaging fiction. Michelle isn’t the only one making Gabe question his role as pastor, however. Behind the scenes, his archdiocese is covering up for pedophilic priests, and Gabe’s flock is starting to demand answers. “Our jobs require our parishioners’ trust in the Church and in us as its representative,” Gabe tells the small group of fellow clergy he meets with regularly for drinks. “And in the case of pedophilia, if they find they can’t trust the Church, then they have to at least be able to trust me.” With that in mind, Gabe launches a quiet investigation, with the help of another priest, of the bad priests of Pittsburgh, a quest that brings him into contact with the dogged police detective Carla Jessup. But is Gabe’s crusade against the sinful priests—which quickly lurches into violence—just a way of atoning for his own sinful nature? Hogan’s muscular prose makes for easy reading, as here where Gabe grows frustrated after several rounds of confession: “An hour later, he heard the door close as his last parishioner exited the confessional. Checking his watch, he saw he had time for a light Krav Maga workout before catching the Pirates game at one of the bars where they knew him, but not as a priest.” Despite some of the action-movie elements—which never feel quite real—the novel sincerely grapples with many of the tensions of modern Catholicism. It’s perhaps an imperfect vessel for these ideas, and its odd blend of genres (and Bible jokes) might not find a wide audience, but the reading experience is an unexpectedly engaging one.
A flawed but memorable novel about a vigilante priest.Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73694-363-2
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Laughing Dog Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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