A meat-and-potatoes thriller, sure—but they're delicious meat and potatoes.
An action-packed, cinema-ready debut thriller.
Kurt Argento is an ex-cop from Detroit with a stubborn, uncompromising sense of justice and formidable street-fighting skills. Having lost his beloved wife and—see "stubborn, uncompromising" above—recently his job, he heads south and west in his pickup, alone in the world but for his dog. When, at a small-town carnival in Missouri, he sees a young girl enticed into trouble by a pedophile, he intervenes, only to end up, when the perpetrator turns out to be the corrupt sheriff's brother, beaten and in custody. Because of overflow in the local jail, Kurt—who's given a false name and hasn't mentioned being ex-police—is moved to a nearby for-profit maximum-security prison. As he's booked in, all hell breaks loose: Either by glitch or by plan, the computerized lock system goes haywire, unlocking about half of the doors, and the guards—a skeleton crew because it's July 4—quickly either seek shelter or are overwhelmed. After saving a nurse from sexual assault, Kurt encounters a private tour group consisting of a terrified assistant warden, two people who are clearly security officers, and a young woman who turns out to be the governor's daughter, a graduate student doing a discreet site visit for research. They realize that their only hope of escape, in the short time before the whole computer system fails and every door springs open, is to make their way up six floors, each filled with more fearsome inmates than the last, to the roof. If this sounds formulaic, it is; if it sounds like a recipe for steadily escalating mayhem, it is; if you think you know where it's headed, you do. But it's also pulse-pounding, cleverly plotted, fast-paced, expertly made entertainment.
A meat-and-potatoes thriller, sure—but they're delicious meat and potatoes.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538739877
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.
Hired to find the father of celebrity “muffin girl” Traci Beller 10 years after his disappearance, PI Elvis Cole uncovers a nefarious plot that puts his life and those he contacts at risk.
The sweetly likable Traci, now 23, has amassed a huge following with her website, The Baker Next Door, and on social media. Against the advice and self-interest of the people who over-manage her career, she decides to find out what happened to her father. Cole quickly determines that he was last seen at the SurfMutt hamburger stand, where he gave a ride to Anya Given, a troubled 15-year-old whose mother, Sadie, was late in picking her up from the skate park across the street. With the reluctant help of a scattered young woman who used to work at the burger joint, Cole tracks down Anya and Sadie, who is eventually revealed to have a criminal past. For his efforts, he’s jumped by a small gang of men who send him to the hospital with the worst beating of his life. (Asked by a nurse what his name is, the best he can guess is “Los Angeles.”) Still in recovery, Cole and Joe Pike, his ex-Marine partner, trace his attackers to Sadie, with unexpected results. As ever, Crais draws the reader in via his protagonist’s casual, dryly humorous manner and the book’s relaxed ties to classic noir. Slowly but surely, the plot gains intensity and deadly purpose. Just when you think the missing persons case is solved, Crais ratchets things up with a devastating follow-through. This is the L.A. novelist’s 20th Cole mystery, following such efforts as The Watchman (2007) and Racing the Light (2022). It may be his most powerful.
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780525535768
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
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. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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