Even for true-crime podcasters, the truth is tough to find in this brisk, entertaining thriller.
A missing woman and a rediscovered religious artifact drive a fast-paced chase by two podcasters and a possible con man.
When Anna McDonald and Fin Cohen leave Glasgow for a family weekend at a rental house, she expects minor disasters. She and Fin are work partners in a popular true-crime podcast, but their domestic situation is intertwined as well—her ex and his ex are now a couple, and all of them are co-parenting Anna’s two young daughters. They all get along, but a new addition to the mix is Sofia, Fin’s young, pretty, poison-tongued girlfriend. So Anna is glad to be distracted by news of the disappearance of a young woman named Lisa Lee—a story that’s a prime candidate for their podcast. Lisa is part of an online community centered on urban exploring, UrbEx for short—people who break into abandoned properties and livestream what’s inside. Lisa vanished from her home near Glasgow shortly after she aired a visit to a creepy French chateau full of religious artifacts. And now one of those artifacts, a sealed silver box, is making news. It’s about to be sold at a Paris auction house, and there are rising rumors that it’s a long-missing object called the Voyniche Casket, said to contain a mysterious proof of the resurrection of Christ. The seller is anonymous; the question for Anna and Fin is what its sale has to do with Lisa’s disappearance. Then Fin gets a text from someone named Bram van Wyk wanting to know if they can help him contact Lisa. As the pair piece together Lisa’s background and the history of the Voyniche Casket, they also research Bram and find that he’s a well-known South African antiques dealer with his own sketchy past. When Anna and Fin flee their family holiday for work-related reasons back in Glasgow, Bram, rather alarmingly, shows up at Anna’s house, offering to help find Lisa. He has his surly 12-year-old son, Marcos, in tow. Bram charms them into coming to Paris for the auction with him (he has a private plane), kicking off a mad dash around Europe. It’s clear he’s a con man, but how much so? Are Anna and Fin unwilling players in an elaborate ruse, or are their lives in danger? Mina keeps the plot charging at a breathless pace, and Anna is an engagingly tart narrator.
Even for true-crime podcasters, the truth is tough to find in this brisk, entertaining thriller.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-24272-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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 touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.
Roberts’ latest may move you to tears, or joy, or dread, or all three.
Every summer, John and Cora Fox visit Cora’s mother, Lucy Lannigan, in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky, leaving their children, 12-year-old Thea and 10-year-old Rem, for a two-week taste of heaven. The children love Grammie Lucy far more than John’s snooty family, which looks down on Cora. Lucy, a healer with deep Appalachian roots, loves animals, cooks the best meals, plays musical instruments, and makes soap and candles for her thriving business. Thea—who’s inherited the psychic abilities passed down through the women of Lucy’s family—has vivid magical dreams, one of which becomes a living nightmare when a psychopath robs and murders John and Cora as Thea watches helplessly. Thea’s description of the killer and her ability to see him in real time help the skeptical police catch Ray Riggs, who goes to prison for life. Although Thea and Rem go on to have a wonderful childhood with Grammie, Thea constantly wages a mental battle with Riggs, who tries to use his own psychic abilities to get into her mind. Over the years, Thea uses her imagination to become a game designer while the more business-minded Rem helps manage her career. Thea eventually builds a house near Lucy, where a newly arrived neighbor is her teen crush, singer-songwriter Tyler Brennan. Tyler has his own issues and is protective of his young son but slowly builds a loving relationship with Thea, whose silence about her abilities leads to a devastating misunderstanding. At first Thea tries to keep Riggs locked out of her mind. As her powers grow, she torments him. Finally, she realizes that she must win this battle and destroy him if she’s ever to have peace.
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781250289698
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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