A thriller with an endlessly twisty plot and plenty of lingering questions for a third book to answer.
A California cold-case division finds that the disappearance of a B-movie director/producer isn’t nearly as straightforward as it initially seems in Booth’s (Olive Park, 2011) sequel.
Fresh off the closing of the infamous Olive Park murders, the three members of Sacramento’s On-Going Investigation Division are ready to move on. But their next case is a surprise, as it involves a recently missing person: James Marston Jr., who runs Molten Pitchers, a production company that specializes in low-budget horror films. IT expert Mallory Dimante, a fan of Marston’s schlock, hopes to be more than just an assistant to detectives Stan Wyld and Jake Steiner on this assignment. She and Jake head to Marston’s house and soon learn that the filmmaker was a bit of a recluse and may have been missing a week or more before anyone noticed. OID eventually finds Marston—or some of him, at least—but some body parts left in a BMW complicate matters, as they belong to someone else. Soon, a recently released ex-con seems a likely suspect. Meanwhile, private investigator Peter Berlin may have found a link between the producer and the previous Olive Park case. At the same time, siblings Michael and Jessie Cooper, two Olive Park survivors, are dodging Child Protective Services as their aunt recovers in the hospital. They’re unaware that a dangerous person is after them for a seemingly innocent item they’re carrying. The novel’s ties to the series’ first book are gleefully intricate, but they also mean that reading the prior installment is a requirement. There’s an abundance of shocking moments, including details surrounding Marston’s will, cryptic notes from PI Berlin, and a witness who saw someone near the producer’s car. The pieces of the puzzle don’t all come together by the end, leaving much of the story unexplained—hopefully to be resolved in the planned trilogy’s conclusion. But this one does reveal a villain or two and puts an OID member’s life on the line. It’s also fun to watch the imperiled Michael try to squeeze money from a production company that’s working on an Olive Park–related project.
A thriller with an endlessly twisty plot and plenty of lingering questions for a third book to answer.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9838329-2-8
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
