A cunningly constructed yet flimsy novel of youthful confusion, obsession, and murder.
In a serpentine narrative that reads like a podcast, the friends, parents, and twin sister of a 19-year-old college student recall the events leading up to her disappearance as well as the criminal investigation and personal travails that followed.
Almost every character in this so-called “true crime story" set in Manchester, England, in 2011 has something to hide. That includes the author, who, using his real name, casts himself as one of the more dubious actors on a crowded stage that is in fact a hall of mirrors. The setup, however, is straightforward and all too familiar. At the tail end of a drunken Christmas party, a pretty and talented college student disappears and is never seen again. “She never got the chance to let her childhood and her pretensions fall away,” the vanished Zoe’s pretentious boyfriend, Andrew, later muses. “And you could argue that’s useful for the role that she’s been cast in by the likes of her father....A victim is apparently the best thing you can be in this day and age.” Andrew is one of a handful of central characters interviewed by Evelyn Mitchell, a journalist who becomes obsessed with the case (and who is murdered, perhaps as a consequence or perhaps not). It is Evelyn’s transcript of those interviews—interrupted by emails between Evelyn and the author—that reveals both the truth behind Zoe’s disappearance and the deceits and dangers that shadow these young lives. “It’s amazing what can seem normal when it’s all you know,” one character remarks of his unstable Irish mother. “I spent my first five years dressed as the girl she’s actually been expecting, which was confusing to say the least.” This is Fintan, of whom the reader will learn more and worse. Each voice is distinctive and convincing, and each story within the central tale captures the youth culture of the time in unglamorous Manchester. There is, however, more style than substance in a crime novel that, for all its cleverness, resorts to red herrings that would make Agatha Christie blush.
A cunningly constructed yet flimsy novel of youthful confusion, obsession, and murder.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72824-586-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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