This well-written thriller’s complex plotting and characterization make for a fine read.
In Ekemar’s (The Lost Identity Causalities, 2014, etc.) second thriller in a planned four-book series, Matthias Callaghan returns to London, where he takes on the identity of his late father.
In this latest installment, the author regales readers with multiple plots, cons, identities, and possible outcomes. His protagonist, Callaghan, is back with yet another transplanted face—this time, his dead dad’s. Ostensibly, Callaghan is dead himself, as far as anyone else knows; however, since he and his father so closely resembled each other, he finds it convenient (and sometimes necessary) to switch personas, depending on whom he’s dealing with. He soon finds that he must deal with dogged policemen, gangsters, and even the re-emergence of his ex-wife. Ekemar uses much of this second book to further develop Callaghan as a character—a Jekyll-and-Hyde figure who’s sometimes charming and other times a complete sociopath. Readers will be jolted when the affable Callaghan’s evil persona periodically emerges: “How could I get Rathbone killed without getting myself involved?” This is multilayered writing at its best, as plot tendrils reach in all directions, and at its center is Callaghan himself—a victim of mistaken identity, named after the biblical disciple who replaced Judas, who morphs into a kind of avenging angel. What’s most intriguing about him is that however despicable he becomes, readers will still empathize with him. This is due partly to Ekemar’s skillful writing and partly because Callaghan’s fall began long ago, when he was the victim of a brutal attack. It also doesn’t hurt that the people he takes down are often, though not always, more despicable than he is. Unlike in the first book, which could stand alone, only one of Callaghan’s new plotlines here comes to fruition; most of what happens is used to set up events in future installments. This novel, however, depends heavily on what came before, which makes reading the first part of the Callaghan Tetralogy a prerequisite. That said, it’s a must for those who enjoyed the previous volume.
This well-written thriller’s complex plotting and characterization make for a fine read.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492827665
Page Count: 186
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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