A private eye conquers societal expectations using resolve and ingenuity in this involving, moving mystery.
This thriller tells a tale of perseverance thanks to its besieged protagonist.
Daniel Melton's life has been going well. The second-generation police officer, whose father was killed on the job, has risen to the rank of detective while relatively young. He’s secretly living with fellow cop Mandy Arnold. The only downside is that Daniel’s fellow detective is cocky Tommy Rosetti, a childhood friend: “While they were buddies, there was also a high degree of competitiveness.” Middleton, a deteriorating Indiana industrial city, has been plagued by arsons and thefts lately. The arson investigations are given to Rosetti, the black sheep of a firefighting family. Daniel plugs away on the home robberies, eventually catching the drug-addicted thief Skunk and turning him into his informant. But Daniel’s life changes after a late-night call from Skunk. The detective gets shot after returning to an arson site and ends up paralyzed below the waist. Urged on by former girlfriend and emergency medical technician Michelle Morgan, Daniel rehabs hard but remains in a wheelchair. His efforts to get reinstated as a detective fail. So Daniel becomes a private investigator, mainly working on his own shooting because of the lack of progress by the police. His efforts to discover those behind the arsons around Middleton lead to an explosive conclusion. Hubbartt has created a vivid, flawed protagonist in Daniel. Sure, he’s a dedicated officer who wants nothing more than to return to duty to protect the citizens of Middleton. He adapts well to his new situation, using the internet rather than shoe leather to gather information. But he’s also hellbent on proving that he’s a better sleuth in a wheelchair than the police detectives making no headway on his case. Michelle has her own reasons for reconnecting with Daniel, as becomes apparent as the engrossing novel progresses. Since the complex story is told from Daniel’s perspective, the narrative seems a little draggy, as his efforts sometimes lead to dead ends. In addition, for all his investigations, he has trouble connecting the dots. Still, with persistence and willpower, Daniel proves his mettle by overcoming obstacles placed in his way in this stirring tale.
A private eye conquers societal expectations using resolve and ingenuity in this involving, moving mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2022
ISBN: 9798352191026
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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