Poignant and engrossing, with small and large surprises leading to the final reveal.
A multilayered psychological thriller set in the fictional small coastal town of Misty Pines, Oregon, where a 14-year-old girl is abducted.
Sheriff Jax Turner is a broken man. Five years earlier, his 4-year-old daughter, Lulu, died from cancer, and Jax’s inability to move through his grief finally led his wife, Abby, to divorce him. We meet the sheriff as he drives to the shoreline and places his gun in his mouth. He hesitates just long enough with his finger on the trigger to receive a call from headquarters: Allison Krueger is missing. One more case. One more chance to redeem himself after the failure a quarter century ago in Portland to save Madeline Massey, who was taken along with her younger sister, Elena. Although Elena escaped, Madeline was found too late. It’s the cold case that has always haunted him and his former partner and was one of the reasons he and Abby moved to the quietude of Misty Pines. Now, with his chief deputy on an Alaskan fishing trip, Jax must depend on a trio of newbies to begin the investigation. Allison’s mother, Emily, has been raising the teenager on her own ever since her husband, Daniel, left them to marry psychotherapist Elena Massey—the same Elena who’d been abducted 25 years ago. Keliikoa’s brooding mystery gradually fills with eclectic clues that link the two cases, signaling the possible return of a psychopath bent on taunting Jax and Elena, two characters whose own emotional stability is already compromised. Jax’s debilitating angst and self-doubt are viscerally portrayed, especially via his compulsive efforts to finish the dollhouse he had been building for his daughter. But his overwhelming anxiety nearly overpowers the thrill of the narrative. Fortunately, he slowly regains his professional footing, and Keliikoa builds the tension steadily as time runs out and Jax must sort through a combination of solid leads, twisty secrets, and several red herrings.
Poignant and engrossing, with small and large surprises leading to the final reveal.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.
Hired to find the father of celebrity “muffin girl” Traci Beller 10 years after his disappearance, PI Elvis Cole uncovers a nefarious plot that puts his life and those he contacts at risk.
The sweetly likable Traci, now 23, has amassed a huge following with her website, The Baker Next Door, and on social media. Against the advice and self-interest of the people who over-manage her career, she decides to find out what happened to her father. Cole quickly determines that he was last seen at the SurfMutt hamburger stand, where he gave a ride to Anya Given, a troubled 15-year-old whose mother, Sadie, was late in picking her up from the skate park across the street. With the reluctant help of a scattered young woman who used to work at the burger joint, Cole tracks down Anya and Sadie, who is eventually revealed to have a criminal past. For his efforts, he’s jumped by a small gang of men who send him to the hospital with the worst beating of his life. (Asked by a nurse what his name is, the best he can guess is “Los Angeles.”) Still in recovery, Cole and Joe Pike, his ex-Marine partner, trace his attackers to Sadie, with unexpected results. As ever, Crais draws the reader in via his protagonist’s casual, dryly humorous manner and the book’s relaxed ties to classic noir. Slowly but surely, the plot gains intensity and deadly purpose. Just when you think the missing persons case is solved, Crais ratchets things up with a devastating follow-through. This is the L.A. novelist’s 20th Cole mystery, following such efforts as The Watchman (2007) and Racing the Light (2022). It may be his most powerful.
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780525535768
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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