An engaging tale that depicts the atrocities of slavery and the redemptive power of love.
A debut novel follows the struggles of a slave who finds his way to freedom and becomes a celebrated bounty hunter.
Readers meet Joe Walker when he is 38 years old and in Nebraska tracking down Jim Slocum, a vicious murderer. Unfortunately, Slocum is a full day ahead of Joe, who discovers the bodies of three more victims. The butchery causes Joe to reflect on his earlier years. Born on a Benton, Tennessee, plantation, Joe is the second of his parents’ four children. His family is close-knit and loving. But everything changes in 1856, when 10-year-old Joe is sold to Jackson Budreau, a brutal plantation owner in Louisiana. There, he meets Jacob Budreau, Jackson’s biracial son, a cruel bully whose special enmity toward the young boy will come back to haunt Joe years later. During his years on the Budreau plantation, Joe gradually develops a deep well of anger. In 1862, the Civil War is taking its toll on the Budreau fortune, and Joe is once again sold. This time, he escapes and joins the Union Army as a member of the “Fifth Colored Cavalry.” Although he originally sees this as an opportunity to exact revenge, the carnage of war teaches him that he just wants peace. Ahead lie love, loss, and a risky determination to confront the violence in his past. While Greer’s prose lacks lyrical embellishments, he provides enough action and conflict to keep the pages turning. And Joe is a lot more than a fast gun. The author imbues this soulful loner with depth, sensitivity, and spirituality. Some of the addictive novel’s most poignant moments involve Joe’s special connection to his various horses, including one named Buck, each of whom becomes his most constant and loyal companion. In the Army, “when nightmares robbed Joe of sleep, he would leave his bunk and go to Buck’s stall where he would lay down literally at the animal’s feet. With Buck standing guard, he would often find the rest that had eluded him.”
An engaging tale that depicts the atrocities of slavery and the redemptive power of love.Pub Date: July 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73473-460-7
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Tidewalker Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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