Chilling tales that deftly blend the traditional and the unorthodox.
Ghosts, werewolves, and things hidden in the dark lurk in this collection of horror stories.
Ebenezer doesn’t shy away from genre conventions, like an old-fashioned ghost story. In “The Permanent Clerk,” Martin’s new white-collar gig in New York City comes with an ever lingering apparition. Martin should be OK if he doesn’t make contact with the ghost, which may not be an easy feat. Other tales in this 13-story collection save much of the horror for twisty endings. The author’s skillful character development gives these denouements a hefty punch. In “The Nocturnal Habits of the Late Derek Gray,” for example, the sheriff of a small Maine town investigates a murder. It’s a simple mystery—a local man shot and killed his best friend—that builds to a memorably eerie turn. Ebenezer’s impressive pacing drops readers into the narratives and generates action scenes (for example, characters battling otherworldly beings) within relatively short stories. At the same time, he aptly describes all the spooky morsels, like a summoned demon: “Its spine protruded through the scaly skin of its back, its corded muscles visible underneath, though its chest was encased in an exoskeleton, as if it were wearing the rib cage of a larger creature. The tail came last, no trace of skin attached to it.” The collection’s most indelible stories fuse genres, like the dark Western “Two Shadows, One Gun.” The tale follows notorious gunslinger Deadeye Dixon, who takes out anyone that challenges him in his Old West town. Locals soon learn the terrifying reason Deadeye never loses a gunfight, but not before more bullets fly and bodies fall. Another cross-genre story is the steampunk-inspired “Fertile Minds,” which is also the book’s highlight. The tale’s hero, Chelsea Pepperdine, combats evil in 19th-century London; she’s a whip-smart, formidable woman who practically demands her own series.
Chilling tales that deftly blend the traditional and the unorthodox.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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