A tale that derives its chills from a moody atmosphere and an unrelenting, unknown antagonist.
An ex-convict gets caught up in a murder investigation in a town full of stories about a local, bloodthirsty witch in Horton’s (Small Towns, Country Roads, & Autumn Leaves, 2010) horror yarn.
Mike, on parole in Ohio for a drug-related charge, needs to make some money, so he opts for selling marijuana. He gets a tip to check out Crossroads Tavern in Uhrichsville, where he makes contact with Lowell, who can supply him with product. Unfortunately, the district attorney already suspects Lowell of running drugs, despite the fact that he uses isolated locations for pickups and has paid off the local deputy, Harris. Both the deputy and DA also believe that Lowell’s responsible for the disappearance of Harley Mullins, who recently braved the nearby swamp to disprove a swamp-witch legend. Townspeople have attributed a number of vanishings to said witch, and Mike appears to buy into the folklore. As he retrieves marijuana bundles at night, in cemeteries or abandoned churches, he becomes convinced that someone’s watching him. This could be chalked up to paranoia, but that doesn’t explain Mike’s sightings of a strange, hooded woman in the forest. He later dreams of her, certain that she has a secret to reveal. He searches for the truth, but he may not like the end result, which entails the death of at least one person. Horton’s novel thrives on ambience, which he establishes right away with a tavern patron’s story of the titular swamp witch. Readers never know any more than the protagonist does, so the legend’s validity (or lack thereof) isn’t clear for much of the book. Recurrent descriptions of rain and wind make for an effectively ominous environment, although sometimes Mike seems to be merely scaring himself when he hears strange noises. Horton ties in a mystery, as well, with Nicole the barmaid having “shacked up” with Harley and possibly Lowell. Meanwhile, Mike finds himself in a unique position to get evidence against his associates, leading Harris to throw a few threats in his direction. The largely resolved ending still leaves a nagging question or two.
A tale that derives its chills from a moody atmosphere and an unrelenting, unknown antagonist.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944680-54-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Green Ivy Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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