Evil lies beneath the surface in this gripping tale of bigotry and religious orthodoxy.
A gay couple and their two children move into a new home in a small, run-down town in Saxsma’s eerie thriller.
Dwayne and Ollie pack up their lives and take up residence in a house in the small town of Larton with Ollie’s two kids, teenage Jodi Lee and 5-year-old Sam. The author gives a long, cinematic description of the house, the crumbling town, and untended fields in the novel’s opening that sets an ominous tone. It’s 1987, and Dwayne suffers from an unnamed illness (all signs point to HIV). As the reader develops concern for Dwayne (who also struggles to impress Ollie’s kids), Ollie joins the sheriff’s department, where the community’s seedy underbelly is exposed: There’s a serial killer on the loose, called “The Visitor,” and catching the man becomes Ollie’s new unhealthy obsession. Meanwhile, Jodi befriends Beverly, whose conservative, religious family attends services where they chant that God “hates them and loves us.” It’s clear that gay men like Ollie and Dwayne are the target of this religious hatred, and Dwayne faces unsettling instances of bigotry throughout the novel, culminating in one deeply disturbing moment of violence. The depiction of small-town and evangelical closed-mindedness is hardly new, and the actions they inspire might be read by some as gratuitous. In the context of the 1980s setting and the established atmosphere of the book, however, every element feels of a piece. What’s more original is the breakdown of a same-sex relationship, which crescendos in a deft and momentous final act in which all the threads of the story finally come together. And that ending—perfection.
Evil lies beneath the surface in this gripping tale of bigotry and religious orthodoxy.Pub Date: March 31, 2023
ISBN: 9798218143909
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Expert, but unsurprising.
The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.
If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.
Expert, but unsurprising.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538770382
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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