A ghastly detective story and a macabre parable that should accommodate genre fans with a nightmare or two.
Macraven’s (Testament of the Dead, 2014, etc.) latest horror outing is a two-story collection that delves into the dark hearts of people whose depravity includes murder and black magic.
In the author’s first story, “Thoughts of a Killer,” Detective Merrick is after a serial killer who’s mutilating prostitutes. A crucifix in one of the bodies implies a religious angle, but that doesn’t help Merrick whittle down the suspect list. In the course of his investigation, he encounters an abundance of unpleasant individuals, some even with the capacity for murder, but no one, it seems, who’d debase the victims in such a manner. Merrick is a memorable protagonist, tormented and haunted by both the murdered women and his partner, Cody, who was killed in the line of duty and with whom Merrick has entire conversations when organizing his thoughts on the case. Readers won’t easily identify the killer, as Merrick interrogates numerous male and female suspects; even he is prone to shifting suspicions from one person to the next and sometimes back to the original person. Scenes with Harry, the morgue attendant, relaying details of the bodies to Merrick can be stomach-churning, but they’re never outright offensive. The much-shorter “Missing Jezebel” takes place in the 19th century. Grazel Goodwin hates her sister, Abigail, for getting all their parents’ attention. Grazel’s incestuous relationship with her uncle incurs her family’s ire, and she leaves in disgrace, hiding away in the mountains where she meets Ravel, a black witch. Years later, having dabbled in witchcraft, Grazel uses a spell to lure Abigail’s daughter, Jezebel, away from her mother in a twisted tale of misguided vengeance. Both stories have a feel of vintage horror; despite the former story’s contemporary setting, its murders in the streets and butchered victims recall Jack the Ripper’s rampage. Yet the tales are vastly different. Third-person descriptions of the murders in the first story are visceral and sometimes repulsive, while the latter’s narrative spans decades. The book does have its share of flubs, particularly misspellings and mishandled punctuation, which too often distract from the otherwise engaging storylines.
A ghastly detective story and a macabre parable that should accommodate genre fans with a nightmare or two.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499082685
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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