A well-plotted, enjoyable adventure.
In this thriller, a young man who has lost almost everything faces threats to himself and his family.
Atticus Forester’s family is immensely wealthy and powerful thanks to Pandion Capital, a hedge fund founded by his father and uncle. But one fateful morning, the corporate jet explodes upon takeoff, killing Atti’s father, mother, and older brother. As fate would have it, Atti missed the plane (his father, Hugo, the pilot, was tyrannically punctual). Soon after this tragedy, Pandion Capital is exposed as a Ponzi scheme; the courts and creditors take all the money; and Atti is suddenly a pauper and a pariah, finding out who his real friends are. But a maniac who blames the Foresters for his tortured life, not without reason, is out to kill even the second generation of them. This is truly biblical, or rather, classical Greek. Garish and fiendish taunts appear: Someone tries to poison Atti’s dog; his uncle is sent a case of poisoned wine; and his aunt gets a Gucci handbag with a dead bat inside. And Crane, a crazed scholar, sends riddling verses based on Greek mythology to Atti. There is finally a mad, white-knuckle chase at the family’s Maine compound with a fierce nor’easter thrown in, as Atti and his friends try to rescue a kidnapped woman from a killer’s dire clutches. Ried paints a vivid picture of Atti’s world, both before and after the disasters. After one early embarrassment, Atti feels “like a potted plant someone forgot to water.” But the author also shows Atti to be a real mensch who can take everything the world throws at him, resulting in a riveting survival story. And Atti has at least three true friends to see him through: Gabriel Oak, the caretaker of the family compound; Elle, Atti’s beautiful cousin and confederate; and his resourceful sidekick, Paolo Giaquinto, aka Q. So readers get a gripping mystery (Crane is not the only suspect in the misdeeds) along with a study in true and false friends and the corruptive power of great wealth, all set mostly on the fabled rockbound coast of Maine.
A well-plotted, enjoyable adventure.Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 9781949085549
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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