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 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
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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