A potent assemblage of briskly paced tales that will satisfy mystery and crime noir fans.
A collection of short fiction primarily centers on beachfront locales.
In assembling a variety of literary tales, short mysteries, and crime noir, Olsen handpicked these stories not only for their often bestselling and award-winning authors, but also for their suspense quotient and deft ability to thrill in a few pages. The opener, “In the Bank,” from novelist Antoine Wilson, follows two greedy thieves with a boat who hatch a plan to disguise themselves as Coast Guard sailors to intercept a lucrative marijuana shipment from cartel smugglers. Things, of course, go horribly wrong, as is the case in other tales like Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara’s crisp, effective “Off the 405,” in which a multifamily day at a Southern California beach quickly devolves into high-speed chaos on a freeway, and the noir crime short “Summer of ’86” from writer Tod Goldberg. Goldberg’s story focuses on a recently released felon traveling to Monterey Bay to help a sibling make ends meet after her boyfriend mysteriously disappears. The East Coast finds private investigator and newspaper reporter Susan Jaffe in prime form as she unravels the coldblooded murder of an original member of a private nudist resort in Shamus Award–winning writer Charles Ardai’s charming and endlessly engrossing mystery “The Naked and the Dead.” The quirky cast of characters, Jaffe’s pluckiness, and the seamless narration create a winning tale that will have readers seeking Ardai’s longer mysteries. Novelist Rob Roberge’s atmospheric missing person story “The Five Thieves of Bombay Beach” is set near the dry, desolate, sulfur-stinking Salton Sea. The narrator searches the beach for his father, who vanished. Other tales vary in theme, from the eclectically imagined life of jazz great Miles Davis in the 1950s to a horror yarn about outlaw sisters who murder together. Though these works often share similar themes, the diversity of the narrative voices and the seasoned storytelling abilities of these talented authors create compelling tones that evoke the suspenseful, the downtrodden, and the murderously moody. The collection’s longest entry is Alex Webb Wilson’s novella Wasteland, which uses essential elements and family bonds to brilliantly conclude the anthology with raw, vividly realized emotions. Olsen has masterfully gathered an established crew of writers to maximum effect.
A potent assemblage of briskly paced tales that will satisfy mystery and crime noir fans.Pub Date: July 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-732280-1
Page Count: 217
Publisher: Kelp Books
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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