This fast-paced narrative effectively mixes intense family drama with rapid-fire action.
An ordinary man seeks the truth about his family in Depression-era Kansas in Armstrong’s historical thriller.
Jedidiah Albright, an average man estranged from his wife and family by tragedy and hardship, is working as a railway mail clerk in the Dust Bowl of Kansas in the year 1930 when he encounters 17-year-old Madeleine Robichaux, who could be the twin of his sister, Carrie—and is the age Carrie was when she vanished from the family homestead in 1912. Knowing Madeleine is adopted and certain there must be a connection, Jed enlists the help of his surly older brother, Arthur (an FBI agent), unwittingly setting in motion a complicated chain of events that spins the narrative into mystery/thriller territory. The story alternates between 1930 and 1911, when the orphaned Jed, Arthur, Carrie, and their oddball younger brother, Tim, struggled to stake a land claim by turning virgin prairie into farmland. While the farm proved to be a failure, oil exploration in the region makes its mineral rights valuable in 1930. Inspiredby aspects of his grandfather’s life, the author authentically evokes the story’s two eras, whether describing the landscape, the people, or the vast changes in society that occurred over less than two decades, and offers a cynical view of the greed, self-interest, and official corruption that ran rampant. In keeping with the times in which the story takes place, a few unpleasant characters use racial slurs. Jed’s railway mail clerk job, which combines strict routine with sudden dangers—he carries a service revolver—perfectly suits his character: honest and unassuming yet capable of iron-willed determination and grit to protect those he cares about. Pithy descriptions bring secondary characters to life: A prissy friend of Tim’s shakes Jed’s hand “as if working a lever on an etiquette vending machine.” Female characters, including Carrie, Madeleine, and Jed’s wife, Amanda, are strong and realistic, and Jed is a sympathetic and relatable protagonist.
This fast-paced narrative effectively mixes intense family drama with rapid-fire action.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9788218184360
Page Count: 321
Publisher: Lexington House Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Expert, but unsurprising.
The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.
If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.
Expert, but unsurprising.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538770382
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK TO SCREEN
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