Stage fuses horror with domestic suspense to paint an unflinching portrait of childhood psychopathy and maternal regret.
A mute, diabolical 7-year-old wages war against her mother in this chilling debut.
Hanna Jensen has never spoken aloud in front of another human being. Her parents, Alex and Suzette, have subjected her to scores of tests, fearing a physical disability, but in truth, Hanna simply finds words to be an ugly means of expression and chooses not to use them. Hanna also knows that her silence anguishes her mother, which is an added bonus; although Hanna adores her father, who believes she can do no wrong, she despises Suzette and torments her at every turn. Hanna has been expelled from three preschools and two kindergartens for bad behavior, forcing Suzette to home-school her—an arrangement that further strains their fraught relationship. The constant stress is wreaking havoc on Suzette’s health, so she redoubles her efforts to locate a school that will accept her troubled child. But as Suzette dreams of child-free days, Hanna is making plans of her own. This tightly plotted, expertly choreographed tale unfolds in alternating chapters from the perspectives of Hanna and Suzette. Author Stage palpably conveys Suzette’s fear, anger, frustration, and desperation while exploring the deleterious effects that motherhood can have on one’s marriage and self-worth. Hanna’s chapters are calm and upbeat by comparison, but they offer no respite from the book’s mounting tension; naïve observations and whimsical fantasies share the page with twisted musings and nefarious schemes, the jarring juxtaposition only compounding the reader's sense of unease.
Stage fuses horror with domestic suspense to paint an unflinching portrait of childhood psychopathy and maternal regret.Pub Date: July 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-17075-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Very slow off the mark, though once blackmail and murder enter the picture, Scottoline moves things along with her customary...
In Scottoline’s latest family-centered thriller (Accused, 2013, etc.), Jake Buckman lets son Ryan drive the family car on a back road. Very bad idea.
The car hits someone, and she’s dead. Faced with the prospect of his teenager’s life being ruined, Jake tells him to get back in the car, and they drive away. “[D]on’t tell Mom,” Jake warns; he loves his wife, but Pam has the personality you’d expect of a superior court judge (judgmental), and their marriage is still recovering from Jake’s decision to start his own business, which has made him a mostly absentee husband and father. He’s now “one of the top-ten ranked financial planners in southeastern Pennsylvania,” though his planning skills aren’t evident as Jake ineptly tries to cover their tracks. He also has a terrible time keeping his son from confessing once they learn that the dead girl is Ryan’s high school classmate Kathleen Lindstrom. It takes more than 100 pages for the plot to involve anything other than Jake’s nerves, Pam’s suspicions and Ryan’s guilty wails, all of which are believable but not very interesting. Sleazy blackmailer Lewis Deaner livens things up, especially after he turns up murdered. If the police find those cellphone pictures Deaner had of Jake and Ryan at the scene of the crime, Jake will be a suspect. And once Ryan has blurted out the truth to his mother, furious Pam might be just as happy to see Jake in jail. The killer’s identity isn’t much of a surprise, since he’s the only character with any individual traits apart from the Buckmans and the cops, but the final twist comes out of nowhere, 10 pages from the end.
Very slow off the mark, though once blackmail and murder enter the picture, Scottoline moves things along with her customary professionalism, if scant credibility.Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01009-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Cheap fun: a guilty pleasure few monster-addicts will be able to resist.
A witty, grisly debut about the secret adventures of a Florida sociopath who murders only bad guys.
Dexter Morgan makes his living off the blood of the dead—literally. A “blood-splatter analyst” for the Miami Police Department, Dexter works only on the messiest cases, nearly all homicides and quite a few the work of serial killers. It takes one to know one, too, for Dexter has a very deep and well-guarded secret: He’s been bumping people off for years. Dexter knew from an early age that he was somehow different, and his father, Detective Harry Morgan, had picked up enough abnormal psychology on the job to recognize the signs. Harry tried to help Dexter out by suggesting that the boy might want to make a virtue of necessity by concentrating his murderous energies on the truly wicked people of the world—and Dexter agreed, beginning with the hospice nurse who was systematically overdosing Harry with morphine. From that day forward, Dexter (and his ghostly imaginary friend, the Dark Passenger) have done well by doing bad, disposing of a long line of pedophiles, killers, sadists, and thugs. A consummate professional, Dexter has never left a shred of incriminating evidence behind, but lately he’s begun to worry. A copycat killer is on the loose, leaving a string of victims strewn about the dark byways of Miami bearing the trademarks of Dexter’s handiwork in an obvious attempt to lure him out of hiding. Dexter can play his hand close to his chest, but unfortunately for him one of the cops assigned to the new cases is his sister Deborah, who knows nothing of Dexter’s extracurricular activities. Part of Dexter wants to come of the cold and play with this new guy on the block, but he feels an obligation to keep his sister from being implicated. It’s not just thieves, after all: There’s honor among murderers, too.
Cheap fun: a guilty pleasure few monster-addicts will be able to resist.Pub Date: July 27, 2004
ISBN: 0-385-51123-X
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
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