A complex but diverting whodunit.
In this thriller, a British author realizes that some recent homicides are comparable to the ones in his latest novel.
Kenneth Sorin is a former medicinal chemistry research scientist who’s successfully transitioned to a writing career. He consequently has no time to work as an “amateur detective” and assist his Uncle Ash, an inspector. But Ash’s newest case has all the makings of a fictional murder mystery. A serial killer is murdering local female university students with a modus operandi that includes removing the left eye and replacing it with an emerald. In fact, these homicides share similarities with Kenneth’s manuscript, tentatively titled Mr. Maniac, including that the fictional victims’ initials in the book are the same as those of the dead students. A doctor diagnosed Kenneth with schizoid personality disorder at the age of 17. Unlike schizophrenia, people with this disorder don’t lose touch with reality. Still, after Kenneth receives a phone call from a woman who, it turns out, died a decade ago, he suspects that he actually may be the killer. He searches for patterns among the homicides and victims to unmask the true murderer and soon believes someone is watching him or possibly breaking into his house. Fundin’s (Disorder, 2019) entertaining tale offers several intriguing subplots. One features store owner Philip Worthington, a suspect in at least two of the murders, whose wife, Amy, has caught on to his philandering. These storylines help maintain a persistent momentum as well as bolster the mystery, especially when a subplot’s relevance to the main tale isn’t immediately apparent. Nice touches along the way enliven the story: Kenneth’s romantic interest, Jeanne Russell, is harboring a secret, and he has dealings with SCDX, an enigmatic police branch that’s so covert no one knows the acronym’s meaning. As the narrative advances, the protagonist puts together a theory on the killer’s method that’s surprisingly complicated. This fuels a final act that’s primarily Kenneth’s elucidations, and though it runs too long, it’s comprehensible and ultimately satisfying.
A complex but diverting whodunit.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9999817-2-3
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Asioni Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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
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