Awesome first-fiction venture that immediately thrusts the author into P.D. James' dark orbit—with a peel-the-layers-off tale of utter emotional devastation, relieved only by the deep sensitivity and kindnesses of the detective hero, Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley.
Lynley, handsome, wealthy, and brilliant, is "so damnably charming" that pugfaced, ill-tempered probational partner Det. Sgt. Barbara Havers "couldn't understand why every criminal in the city simply didn't surrender to accommodate him." Now, Lynley must resolve a beheading already confessed to by the victim's obesely bloated daughter Roberta, who was found next to William Teys' body dressed in her Sunday best. She insisted she did it, said she wasn't sorry, and then slipped into catatonia. The true explanation is a horrific saga of abandonment, sexual manipulation, wistful rationalizations, and woeful coping—involving a child-bride, a daughter-sister forced into playing mummy (in every adult sense), child rape, infanticide, debauchery absolved in the confessional, a child victimized by her mother's grief, a woman's malicious enthrallment of two lovers (psychologically incapacitating both men), and all too many people sustaining their own lives by throwing others into chronic jeopardy. At the close, most readers, echoing Lynley, will wish that they too had had the opportunity to decapitate—at the very least—William Teys. Brilliantly drawn here are: the awful American tourists who gleefully impart the legend of the Keldate baby; Havers' claustrophobic family life; Roberta and sister Gillian connecting in anguish with the credible help of a hospital professional.
There's perhaps a shade too much symmetry (the Havers/Teys shrines, for example, and the all-too-intentionally unseeing prelates), but let's not quibble: this is a marvelous book and a searing debut.Pub Date: June 1, 1988
ISBN: 0553384791
Page Count: 366
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1988
Categories: MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
59
GET IT
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. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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