Exquisite in its gloom; should earn even more Ross Duncan fans.
Ross Duncan searches 1934 Chicago for the ever-elusive Irishman in a tale of vengeance (Sleep Not, My Child, 2013, etc.), the third novel in Bartley’s hard-boiled thriller series.
When former bank robber Duncan can’t find the Irishman, the man responsible for a loved one’s death, he does the next best thing: kills the Irishman’s brother and steals his girlfriend, Evelyn. The Irishman’s retaliation catches others in the crossfire. A Chicago criminal organization grants Duncan permission to hunt down the Irish gangster, provided that Duncan works with a killer-for-hire who’s rarely sober. The historical thriller showcases recognizable faces for readers keeping up with the series. Each character struggles with dramatic entanglements; in addition to the Irishman and Evelyn, there’s Duncan’s friend and bank-robbing associate, Jimmy, whose wife is dying; and special agent Trestleman, with whom Duncan shares a tenuous alliance. This installment, however, is more despondent: more violence, more dead bodies and a much more pessimistic Duncan, who’s fixated solely on his vendetta. It’s missing much of the tenderness of the previous entry, in which Duncan was resolute in his pursuit of an abducted boy. But it does show progression for both the hero and story: It’s hard to ignore the image of a .45 resting atop Duncan’s Bible, two items he always carries to signify his acceptance of the violent path. By this time, touches of noir are expected and the crisp dialogue doesn’t disappoint, such as Duncan’s rather blunt appreciation of beauty: “My eyes were filled with what they saw.” And Evelyn may very well be Bartley’s first genuine femme fatale, as the hero is torn between petty resentment over a pornographic photo featuring Evelyn (because of a man whose face can’t be seen) and his complete lack of trust in her. He’s at least smart enough to brace himself when she leads him into an unfamiliar room.
Exquisite in its gloom; should earn even more Ross Duncan fans.Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Peach Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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