A stylish story in which investigators aren’t afraid to get in too deep.
An experienced detective takes on an enigmatic shadow organization in Runkis’ (Three Proofs That God Exists, 2019) dystopian thriller.
In 2056, legendary investigator Willy J. Morro is brought out of retirement at the request of a U.S. senator. She needs the 91-year-old criminologist to help track down the Yuendi, a mysterious criminal organization that’s recently killed several operatives by somehow vaporizing them. The Yuendi—aka the Brotherhood of Chaos—has also been responsible for a string of unusual terrorist acts, such as jamming transportation computers to cause massive traffic jams; as Yuendi expert Ward Baxter thinks, “No one knew how many there were, where they came from, when they got started, or, more importantly, what on God’s green earth they were trying to accomplish—apart from mayhem and mass destruction for destruction’s sake.” Forty-eight-year-old Special Agent Bill Macalister from the U.S. Department of Justice has been assigned to play the sidekick to Morro’s grizzled veteran. Unbeknown to the former, Morro has reason to suspect that the Yuendi may have something to do with UFOs—and a government conspiracy to cover up their existence. The two investigators, plus Baxter and microbiology researcher Mary Jamison, must get to the bottom of the mystery, which involves a possibly mythical object called the Golden Cord of Arram. Runkis’ prose is curt and moody, which is in keeping with the author’s self-aware riff on detective fiction: “It was a large eucalyptus that was now badly charred and broken. Before the blast…it must have stood twenty meters high. It now terminated about three meters above the ground, all charred and splintered.” Morro, in particular, is a welcome addition to the stable of smug-but-capable investigative geniuses—in part due to his advanced age, and his oft-stated desire to celebrate his 150th birthday. Despite the novel’s familiar genre trappings, it’s rather ambitious in its themes, and as the plot ramps up, it goes in unexpected directions. Although the tale goes to some unnecessarily dark places, its mix of conspiracy and crime fiction makes for a generally entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking escape.
A stylish story in which investigators aren’t afraid to get in too deep.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5439-9248-9
Page Count: 234
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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