Gritty, tough, sweaty, with a vivid and well-thought-out backdrop, solid, brutal sleuthing, a deeply flawed but worthy hero...
Far-future, hardboiled good-cop/bad-cop yarn, from Denver-resident newcomer Hammond.
Nearly 800 years from now, following economic collapse, the overheated, barely habitable colony world Lagarto is an impoverished backwater. What little money remains is the byproduct of gangster activity and vice, the former an unholy but effective alliance between police chief Paul Chang and crime boss Ben Bandur, the latter earning desperately needed off-world funds by supplying whores and drugs to tourists and space miners. In the largest city, Koba, narrator detective Juno Mozambe is Chang’s oldest friend, confidante and enforcer. These days Juno’s still quick with his temper and his fists, but, because of duty-related injuries, slower, shaky and contemplating retirement. However, when an army officer is murdered outside a whorehouse, Chang asks Juno to take the case. Now, Chang and Bandur pretty much keep a lid on things, but Chang and Juno have done, and concealed, many dark deeds, and recognize Mayor Omar Samir’s anti-corruption posture immediately as a plot to topple Chang. And Juno’s partner, rookie detective Maggie Orzo, may or may not be reporting to the mayor’s office. In the steaming heat, evidence deteriorates rapidly, but the victim was murdered, it seems, by a psycho who slashed his throat and carved off his lips. What, if anything, does this have to do with the mayor’s power play? Well, when Juno and Maggie catch up with the murderer, it turns out that he’s integral to a string of mysterious abductions, of fit young people who’ve been whisked away into space—as slaves.
Gritty, tough, sweaty, with a vivid and well-thought-out backdrop, solid, brutal sleuthing, a deeply flawed but worthy hero and a sequel waiting in the wings: a powerful combination.Pub Date: July 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-765-31272-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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