A focused, impressively nuanced tale about teenagers, drugs, lies, and the terror of hidden enemies.
A queer high school student ponders the tragedies engulfing his young life and small town.
Lincoln, Arizona, is the setting for Wolfe’s contemporary slice of LGBTQ+ suspense fiction. “Token gay” Tyler Tuckerman struggles to survive beneath the weight of bullying from football jocks, the pressure of being young and out in high school, and a rash of teen suicides. September is sweltering in the gossipy town, which only makes things more dramatic at a funeral for the latest teen suicide, a tragic death following on the heels of those of two other kids who killed themselves on graduation night months earlier. Meanwhile, new student Nicole Clark arrives and immediately gravitates toward Tyler, who appreciates her friendship. Though a fresh face in town, Nicole is still traumatized by her mother’s death from cancer and the fact that her father is the new county sheriff. An avid photographer, Tyler regularly records the Lincoln High football games but must ride the bus to the events with the hypermasculine jocks, an activity he finds “kind of hot. Almost like being in a locker room, but the harassing side is a bitch.” What saves his sanity are memories of a forbidden love with William Ackhurst at summer camp, but he remains obsessed with the boy’s devastating suicide. Narrative duties are split between Tyler and mental health counselor Jennifer Hall, newly arrived from Phoenix and commissioned by the town to assess the serial teen suicides at Lincoln High. She instantly gels with Nicole’s father, and the two band together to look into the particulars of Lincoln’s sudden young deaths. She begins with online investigations and student interviews to forge partnerships between herself and the most at-risk school kids to gauge which students could be next to inexplicably lose hope and want to end their lives.
In this potent tale, vivid details emerge about online chat room participants who target gay students and encourage violent behavior against them at the school—along with specifics about a sinister drug cult. Jennifer also discovers the last boy to die was using mood-altering drugs and tranquilizers that match the toxicology scans of the other victims. When Tyler and Nicole are exposed to heavy drugs at a party and another student winds up dead, Jennifer must spring into action to apprehend the killer. The culprit may be much closer to Tyler than the young protagonist ever imagined. While the plot is drawn from relevant headlines and speeds along with a snappy momentum, Wolfe’s talent is in his crisp characterizations that pepper the story, from the lunch lady with a penchant for sneaking an afternoon cocktail to bullies like Jason Brophy who foment aggression and trouble at school. Gay readers will find Tyler’s openness about his sexuality refreshing, but a plot twist in the book’s final third turns the tables on everyone involved. In an economy of pages, this story manages to skillfully reflect on high school identity and self-discovery in the midst of bullying, confusing sexual awakenings, temptation, and angst from all directions. But the intricate novel is also about suicide and murder in their cruelest forms.
A focused, impressively nuanced tale about teenagers, drugs, lies, and the terror of hidden enemies.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-75048-4
Page Count: 187
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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