Angels and ministers of grace don't have a chance in hell against this nasty, fun-to-read indulgence.
All hell breaks loose in Portland, Oregon, when a pair of thugs stumble into a world-breaking government conspiracy.
Grungy fantasist Rosson pivots to full-on apocalyptic horror but takes his time with talky, crime-heavy character arcs interspersed with 1970s-era conspiracy vibes and a compassionate family drama to boot. Hutch Holtz has a good heart, but he looks like 10 miles of bad road after a scrap with some bikers a while back. Hutch and his pal Tim Reed are stuck doing collections for small-time hood Peach Serrano, but things get weird when they roll a junkie client and find, in his freezer, a withered, supernatural hand that triggers madness, self-mutilation, and worse in those it infects. Through interstitial reports and slow-burn introductions, the inevitable black ops agency, here dubbed ARC, joins the search for the hand and reveals itself to be in possession of an honest-to-God angel with inexplicable powers. To the detriment of “Saint Michael,” the agency’s director, David Lundy, delights in torturing and mutilating his captive despite profiting from the being’s visions. Meanwhile, the book’s Mulder and Scully emerge when hyperambitious field agent Samantha Weils finds herself saddled with John Bonner, a disgraced undercover agent with political coverage. Down at street level, a nice circular narrative arises when Hutch passes the devil’s hand to Serrano’s long-suffering lieutenant, Nick Coffin. Nick’s grit belies his deep compassion for his mother, Katherine Moriarty, a former rock star whose marriage to Nick’s father, Matthew, ended in his suicide and locked her into crippling agoraphobia. Not only were there reasons behind all her suffering, it turns out, but Katherine’s most famous song could portend the end of the world. The mythology is a bit overstuffed, à la John Wick, but Rosson wields the tropes and trappings of horror nimbly, balancing nicely between familial devotion, big-screen apocalyptic visions, and full-throated splatterpunk.
Angels and ministers of grace don't have a chance in hell against this nasty, fun-to-read indulgence.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9780593595756
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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