A well-written, thoughtful mystery with humor, sturdy lead characters, and a surprising wrap-up.
This sequel finds a retired Tennessee detective pondering the suspicious death of a locally prominent artist, stirring up an investigation that exposes the dark underbelly of the international art market.
The lifeless body of quirky and evidently much hated artist Bechman Fitzwallington, ne Billy Wayne Farmer, is discovered by a neighbor in Nashville. Police Detective Hardy Seltzer is called to the scene. He observes the corpse, which “lay uncovered on a brass-framed bedstead. The hands were folded across a generous expanse of stomach, and a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of a mouth that all but disappeared beneath a big bush of ivory-white moustache.” There are no overt signs of foul play. Seltzer figures the older guy probably died of natural causes. The political higher-ups, anxious to promote Nashville’s burgeoning reputation as a center for the visual arts, are pushing the detective to declare that there is no case to investigate. But as Seltzer interviews the eccentric assortment of people in Fitzwallington’s inner circle (including his daughter, SalomeMe), he discovers there are many who had more than enough reason to welcome the unpleasant man’s demise. Seltzer shares his vague feelings of discontent with his friend Shane Hadley—affectionately referred to as “Sherlock Shane Hadley” by those who know of his famed investigative acumen. Shane’s storied career was derailed when a bullet landed in his thoracic spinal cord, leaving him restricted to a wheelchair. A devotee of Holmes’ deductive methodology—as well as of his own illegally imported special Oxford Lincoln College sherry—Shane still has the intellectual heft to helm an entertaining series that depends on cerebral rather than physical challenges. Brigham ensures that readers keep track of his wide array of strong characters by repeatedly using their full names throughout the amusing and unpredictable novel, lending a stylized background cadence to the polished prose. And he adds an extra level of intrigue by intertwining local personal grievances and the machinations of some elite New York art dealers with the “aging brain” research being conducted by Shane’s wife, Dr. Katya Karpov.
A well-written, thoughtful mystery with humor, sturdy lead characters, and a surprising wrap-up.Pub Date: May 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-944962-67-8
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Secant Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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