A swords-and-sandals action-adventure no worse or better than the first five in Smith’s Egyptian series.
Smith (Desert God, 2014, etc.) continues the saga of Lord Taita, loyal consigliere to Pharaoh Tamose.
Sadly, as Taita drives the last of the invading Hyksos from Egypt, Tamose dies. That’s troublesome for Taita because Tamose’s eldest son and heir is a cowardly, hedonistic pervert who calls himself Utteric Turo the Great. Utteric fears Taita. Utteric is also wary of his own brother, Rameses, next in line for the throne. Utteric betrays them both, but after imprisonment, derring-do, and escape, Taita and Rameses sail to Greece’s Bay of Githion, where they’re assured support from King Hurotas. Hurotas was once Tamose’s Capt. Zaras, an Egyptian officer, later persona non grata because he eloped with Tamose’s sister, Princess Tehuti, after being assigned to escort her to marry Minos of Crete. Tehuti and Hurotas’ beautiful daughter, Princess Serrena of Sparta, is like Taita—intelligent, possessor of warrior skills, master of a mythical blue sword with a ruby pommel—and because she was sired by Apollo, divine. Hurotas and Taita contrive alliances among multiple kings to invade Egypt and overthrow Utteric. These Egyptians seemed fascinated with Greek gods, but the novel skids into standard action territory—all swords, chariots, and magic with palace intrigue and set-piece battles. There’s a Serrena-Rameses magnetic attraction but little other human drama. Smith’s Taita continues to think much of himself—“my abundant charms soothed...my exquisite...protocol prevailed”—but constant self-appreciation creates an unsympathetic hero. The dialogue doesn’t distract, and characters are generally all good or all bad. The bad die gruesomely while the pace, like Taita’s self-regard, never slackens.
A swords-and-sandals action-adventure no worse or better than the first five in Smith’s Egyptian series.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-227648-3
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
Reid’s tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of...
A road trip in a snowstorm takes a sinister turn for a man and his girlfriend, the novel’s unnamed narrator.
Reid’s preternaturally creepy debut unfolds like a bad dream, the kind from which you desperately want to wake up yet also want to keep dreaming so you can see how everything fits together—or, rather, falls apart. The narrator, known only as the girlfriend, is driving with her beau, Jake, a scientist, to meet his parents at the family farm. The relationship is new, but, as the title implies, she’s already thinking of calling it quits. Jake is somewhat strange and fond of philosophizing, though the tendency to speak in the abstract is something that unites the pair. The weather outside turns nastier, and Reid intercuts the couple’s increasingly tense journey with short interstitial chapters that imply a crime has been committed, though the details are vague. Matters don’t improve when Jake and the narrator arrive at the farm, a hulking collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere. The meeting with her potential in-laws is as awkward as it is frightening, with Reid expertly needling the reader—and the narrator—into a state of near-blind panic with every footfall on a basement step. On the drive back, Jake makes a detour to an empty high school, which will take the couple to new heights of the terrifying and the bizarre.
Reid’s tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of intricately layered psychological torment so impenetrable it’s impossible to escape.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2692-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.
Thirty years ago, Seattle Police Capt. Edward Shank put down a serial killer dubbed the Butcher. Edward’s bullet ended Rufus Wedge’s sorry life. But did the killings end?
Hillier’s (Freak, 2012, etc.) third thriller fairly shudders with tension. Edward is ready to retire to an assisted living facility and give his grandson, Matt, the family home, a beloved Victorian in a posh neighborhood. An up-and-coming chef, Matt has parlayed his successful food-truck business into Adobo, the hottest restaurant in town, and the reality show networks are calling. The only trouble is that his girlfriend, Samantha, can’t understand why Matt hasn’t invited her to move in, too. After all, they’ve been together for three years. Pressuring Matt, though, isn’t getting her anywhere, and even their friend—well, really Sam’s friend—Jason is a little mystified. Certainly, Matt’s history of anger management trouble gives Jason pause. While Matt renovates the house and works late, Sam turns back to researching her latest true-crime book. This time, she has a personal investment. She’s convinced that her mother was killed by the notorious Butcher. Bored at the retirement home, Edward has become an invaluable sounding board. Like the Butcher’s other victims, Sam’s mother was raped, strangled and left in a shallow grave. Unfortunately for Sam’s theory, her mother was killed two years after Rufus Wedge’s death. Meanwhile, Matt’s contractor has unearthed a crate filled with gruesome artifacts. As Matt investigates the crate’s contents and Sam questions a mysterious informant, their romance unravels and the body count begins to rise. Hillier sends her reader into a labyrinth of creepy twists and grotesque turns. There’s no escape from the brutal truths exposed.
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3421-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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