All the chops of an action-packed horror tale.
Gunhus delivers a taut supernatural thriller with his first novel.
After causing a car accident that killed a little girl, Jack Tremont abandoned his fast-paced career and relocated his family from Orange County, Calif., to Prescott City, Md. He planned to devote more time to parenting his own little girls, Becky and Sarah, while his wife, Lauren, works as a surgeon. When a psychopath named Nate Huckley tries to kidnap Sarah at a rest stop, the encounter ends in a frightening car chase that leaves Huckley in a coma. Jack is certain he saw a tied-up girl fall out of Huckley’s trunk during the crash, but the local police insist otherwise. Afterward, Sarah seems to hear Huckley speaking to her from his hospital room. Jack becomes convinced his daughter’s life is in danger, but no one believes him—not his best friend, Max; not Sherriff Janney; and not the hospital’s psychiatrist, Dr. Moran. Only Native American, ex–special forces operative Joseph Lonetree seems to share Jack’s “delusion.” Turns out several prominent citizens of Prescott City hide an ancient, evil secret, and when Nate Huckley wakes from his coma, there will be no stopping him from taking Sarah. Readers will sympathize with Jack and Lauren living through every parent’s worst nightmare: the inability to protect one’s child. Jack’s plight moves beyond desperation when the police won’t help, and almost everyone he knows and trusts is against him. Gunhus wisely lets readers in on certain secrets before Jack and Lauren are privy to them, while hiding others until the last moment. The novel further builds tension by following many characters via an omniscient point of view. After an especially exciting scene, the narrative will suddenly pivot to follow the action elsewhere, pursuing another crescendo. Though the ancient evil revealed at the end of the book is not particularly original, the powerful Nate Huckley terrifies, and the assorted cast of human antagonists adds to the white-knuckle tension.
All the chops of an action-packed horror tale.Pub Date: May 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9884259-8-9
Page Count: 435
Publisher: Seven Guns Press
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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