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RUINED

A well-executed revenge drama in which every bad deed carries consequences.

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A sexual thriller focuses on a well-liked man hiding a terrible secret.

This novel centers on fit, charismatic, middle-aged businessman Brad Wallace, a company owner, private pilot, grieving widower, and father of a grown son, Jared. Brad’s adjustment to single life has been rocky; he spends almost every evening at Kelsey’s Bar, silently lusting after the women he sees there. When an encounter with a prostitute goes humiliatingly wrong, Brad simmers with anger and hurt pride. He walks through the woods one night and sees a beautiful young woman standing naked on her deck. When she goes inside, he approaches the house for a closer look—and then enters, surprises the young woman (who faints), rapes her, and flees into the woods. For weeks, Brad lives with the horror of what he’s done and with the certainty that “any day there would be a knock at the door and, when he opened it, there would stand two or more police officers ready to read him his rights, slap on the cuffs and drag him off to Shamesville.” But the arrest never comes and he hears nothing about the incident in the news. Just when he’s beginning to breathe easier, he comes home one day to an overjoyed Jared wanting to introduce him to his new fiancee, Nicole Thomas—and Brad is astonished to see the same young woman he raped, who’s happy to meet him. Brad’s guilt and doubts only increase when Jared and Nicole take up living in his house and his son’s new job often sends him out of town. Grodt (Nick Sinclair, PI, 2014, etc.) handles this admittedly manipulative setup with smooth precision. The author increases the biting irony every time Nicole, who claims to remember nothing about her attacker, confides in Brad about how her rape “ruined” her, and how Jared must never know about it. The tense novel manages to be unfailingly gripping without ever trying to enlist the reader’s sympathy for Brad—and without ever allowing the reader to feel quite at ease with Nicole. The book’s well-orchestrated climactic chapters are expertly done and should surprise readers right to the end.

A well-executed revenge drama in which every bad deed carries consequences.

Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1086-6

Page Count: 212

Publisher: iUniverse

Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2017

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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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

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THEN SHE WAS GONE

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Pub Date: April 24, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

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