A mystery that thoughtfully reflects on the hazy line between suspicion and reckless mania.
A reality TV star grieves over the death of his best friend and increasingly suspects foul play in this novel.
In 2025, Jason Debord stars on the TV show Beached, a Survivor-like competition that pits contestants against one another on a remote island, with each vying to be the last one remaining. During its taping, he forges a close friendship with Billy Gerding, and the pair form an alliance on the show, based on strategy and mutual trust. Then Billy suddenly and mysteriously dies, and the producers quickly say that it was a suicide. Jason feels anguish over the loss, but also nagging suspicions that Billy’s death wasn’t accidental. Debut author Hacker convincingly portrays his protagonist’s inner turmoil. Jason thinks that maybe he was killed by another contestant—and Nick, the “villain of the season,” is the prime suspect in this theory. Or maybe the network conspired to kill Billy, he thinks—although this hypothesis lacks a likely motive. Jason gradually reveals his concerns to all who know him—he even contacts Billy’s estranged sister, Emily—but his anxious musings are generally dismissed as flights of fancy. However, he simply can’t let the issue drop—especially after someone breaks into his home, and an aggressive driver forces him off the road. Meanwhile, Jason’s psychiatrist girlfriend Blake becomes increasingly concerned for his mental health. Then Jason uncovers evidence of a larger criminal conspiracy. Over the course of the story, Hacker cleverly shifts between various modes of narration—Jason’s journal entries, phone calls, and text exchanges, as well as third-person omniscience, and this stylistic choice allows the author to deftly compare a range of different perspectives. As a result, the novel artfully keeps the reader in a state of indecision, as Jason sometimes seems unhinged, but at other times perfectly rational. The overall pace of the plot is much too slow, however, and some readers may well tire of the tale about two-thirds of the way through. But overall, this whodunit is intelligently conceived and well-executed.
A mystery that thoughtfully reflects on the hazy line between suspicion and reckless mania.Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73350-492-8
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Anywhere Press
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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