Tense, filled with sharp characterizations, and beautifully worked out (especially in its explanations of said characters’...
The Virginia author of such highly praised mainstream fiction as A Walk to the River and Godfires may have another winner in this Deliverance-like tale of a hunting expedition that has lethal consequences, a partial sequel to his very successful 1998 thriller Tidewater Blood.
Mild-mannered Richmond attorney Walter “Raff” Frampton, the narrator, is one of the two unlikeliest members of the grouse-hunting trip to the nearby West Virginia hills organized by Walter’s old friend, army vet and ardent outdoorsman Drake Wingo. The other is Drake’s casual acquaintance Wendell Ripley, unknown to both Frampton and his other old friend, Cliff Dickens, who shoots Ripley (with whom he's been “paired”) to death in what must surely be a grotesque accident. But investigating Sheriff Sawyers uncovers evidence that contradicts Cliff's account of what happened. As a result, Cliff is soon extradited, charged with premeditated murder—and badly in need of Walter Frampton’s services. Walter’s investigations lead him to a Shaker-like commune, The Watchers (of which Ripley was a member), thence into the heart of Richmond’s gay community, the known habitat of Ripley’s son Jeremiah (who may or may not be dead—and, strangely enough, was formerly employed at Drake Wingo’s sporting goods store). Furthermore, Cliff, an artistic type who visibly lacks female company, did raise numerous eyebrows with that notorious exhibit of homoerotic photography (though he doesn't seem to be gay). It’s all fairly hokey, but Hoffman builds his narrative quite skillfully, juxtaposing Walter’s little shocks of discovery with telling emphases on the complex lifelong bonding that complicates the interrelationships of that fateful grouse hunt’s three survivors. And he manages a smashing end, precipitated by a very revealing daytrip to Fort Lauderdale and climaxing with a dramatic recapitulation of the hunt, in which Walter risks his life and gets his (unspoken) answers.
Tense, filled with sharp characterizations, and beautifully worked out (especially in its explanations of said characters’ credibly mixed motives).Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-019794-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
Familiar thrills lashed to a razor’s edge.
A Spanish cop, incurring a crime lord’s vengeful and wholly unearned wrath, is saddled with a new partner she’s not crazy about herself.
Agreeing to take a late-night call to cover for a colleague who wants to go home to his wife and baby, Officer Cristina Sánchez Pradell, of Marviña’s Policía Local, finds herself face to face with a man she takes to be an armed intruder. Before he can identify himself as Ian Templeton, who broke into his own house after he forgot his keys, he’s startled by a dark figure behind him and fires three shots, killing Angela Fry, the pregnant girlfriend who’d returned with him. Templeton, who’s actually Jack Cleland, a British fugitive widely sought for drug trafficking and killing a cop, blames Cristina’s presence for Angela’s death and swears revenge against her whole family. That includes her husband, Antonio; their 10-year-old son, Lucas; her cancer-stricken sister, Nuri; Nuri’s husband, fellow police officer Paco; and Ana, Cristina’s deaf, blind aunt, whose role will be pivotal. Cleland’s threats ring hollow as long as he’s in custody, but on the journey to transfer him to the custody of John Mackenzie, a disgraced ex-cop on his first day as an investigator for Britain's National Crime Agency, Cleland’s underlings break him out, killing one cop and shooting Paco nonfatally so that he can relay the news to Cristina. Mackenzie, a Scot who has long-standing issues with authority figures of all kinds, is ready to take the next flight home, but Sub-Inspector Miguel López, the chief of Marviña Station, insists that he stay and help Cristina, who clearly needs all the help she can get, however antipathetic its source. As the unwilling partners track down leads to Cleland’s present whereabouts, Cleland, effortlessly outmaneuvering them, zeroes in on one soft target after another. May (I’ll Keep You Safe, 2018, etc.) keeps a few surprises in reserve but not enough to prevent you from thinking you’ve seen this all before.
Familiar thrills lashed to a razor’s edge.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78429-498-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Mobius
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
A solid sense of place, a looming sense of menace: a frequently gripping read.
Veste’s moody procedural tells the story of a pair of Liverpool detectives tracking a killer influenced by local mythology.
Louise Henderson, the investigator at the heart of this novel, is a detective with secrets. She keeps some from her partner, DS Shipley; when the book opens, she’s also grappling with moments of sudden and inexplicable terror that leave her unsure of their origin and unsettled by their impact on her. Soon, the detectives take up the case of a woman who escaped a deadly attack—and who believes it was the work of the title character, a local legend who may be a murderer, a supernatural creature, or something else entirely. Not long after that, a dead body shows up, which suggests a connection to an earlier death, but a host of loose ends hang for the detectives to piece together—and there’s also the matter of a series of flashbacks set years earlier, when a teenager vanished. How these seemingly disparate elements connect—sometimes linearly, sometimes via well-made twists—leads the novel to its conclusion. Veste’s slow-burning approach works well, sustaining the sense of general wrongness that gives the narrative so much atmosphere. There are a few heavy-handed moments here and there. “They thought they knew evil. They had no idea” is perhaps the most flagrant example; as this book is either about a serial killer or an urban legend come to life, that sense of menace is already built in to the narrative well enough. But the conclusion is largely satisfying, playing well off the dynamics Veste established over the course of the story.
A solid sense of place, a looming sense of menace: a frequently gripping read.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7129-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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