A nightmarish Southern noir in which everyone pays a price.
In this odd reimagining of the Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jeane Baker story, small-town Florida teen Addie’s dream of visiting Hollywood for her 18th birthday with Aunt Jean, her mother’s best friend, is shattered by violence.
Aunt Jean, as she does with some regularity, has traveled to the (fictional) town of Hockta to “[claw] her way back to normal” in her friend’s care after one of her downward slides. A major part of her problem is Siebert Rix, the nasty, obsessed photographer she has known since childhood who has followed her from Los Angeles and demanded she return there with him. The plot breaks down into three components: Rix’s twisted pursuit of Marilyn/Jean, who drifts in and out of different personalities in trying to protect Addie and her family; the Tampa mafia’s pursuit of Addie’s impetuous boyfriend, Truitt, after he accidentally kills the nephew of the mob boss; and the local sheriff’s determined efforts to protect Truitt and his mother, whose no-good husband was gunned down by the mob. Dead bodies litter the landscape, including that of a female store clerk who spends most of the novel in the trunk of Rix’s car and, propped up in Addie’s living room, a deluded local man who thought the movie star was going to marry him. Ultimately, Marilyn/Jean isn’t the only one good at playing roles. Addie finds herself playing the part of someone strong enough to help her mother. In a fit of rage, her father “turned into someone none of us had ever seen.” The Marilyn/Jean switches don’t always make sense and ultimately the plot strands are tied up too neatly. But Roy keeps things taut and tense throughout, springing surprises and making all her characters count.
A nightmarish Southern noir in which everyone pays a price.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9781662519932
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
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
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
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