An engagingly original novel that’s by turns clever and discomfiting.
In Tree’s thriller set in late-1970s London, a college student finds himself swept up in a radical group’s violent plans.
The tale’s unnamed narrator is a 19-year-old who manages to get accepted into a venerable academic institution, Wolverton College at Wellingford University, despite his modest background and, by his own account, being “bereft of oomph.” But he’s full of youthful discontent. He joins the Real Workers’ Party, reads widely in Marxist literature, and believes, however inarticulately, that society is fundamentally corrupt: “All I’ve seen so far is that the system is rigged, rigged from top to bottom, you’re inserted into it at one level or another and once you’re in you have to do your best with your allotted lot.” Meanwhile, London is roiled by terrorist bombings; a group called The Vanguard claims responsibility but doesn’t seem to have any cause to push. The protagonist’s girlfriend, Beth, surmises that they’re a “bunch of nutters.” An intimidating MI5 agent, James Delaney, compels him to try to make contact with them, but he’s kidnapped in the process by Vanguard operatives. Their leader turns out to be Ralph Finns, an old school friend who hails from a wealthy family—a plot twist that readers may see coming. Otherwise, though, this is a stunningly unpredictable work; for one thing, it turns out that The Vanguard isn’t a political group at all. They’re an assemblage of people seeking to take down those who have victimized them in the past. This is an offbeat book that effectively combines humorous moments with disturbingly dark content, including descriptions of sexual abuse that are very difficult to read. But it’s also a gripping work that takes on the hypocrisy of the society in which the protagonist lives—one that confirms his intuitions, if not his Marxist leanings.
An engagingly original novel that’s by turns clever and discomfiting.Pub Date: July 19, 2023
ISBN: 9798398211672
Page Count: 241
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.
Following her father’s sudden death, Aisling Swann is secretly horrified when her mother begins to date again—and she quickly becomes suspicious of this new flame.
Four years ago: A mysterious male narrator reflects upon his relationship with his wife—along with a few pointed comments about how she is aging. It quickly becomes apparent that this self-proclaimed “very pleasant” man is not who he seems; he already has a girlfriend on the side, and he’s playing both women with sob stories about his job and his traumatic past while taking money from them. Even as they get more and more frustrated with his lack of communication during ever-lengthening absences, he still gives them what they want: “a top-notch husband.” In the present day, Ash Swann; her brother, Arlo; and their mother, Nina, mourn the loss of her charismatic father, Paddy, a successful chef with a chain of lucrative restaurants. Nina receives a sympathy note from a man who claims to have worked closely with Paddy in the industry, which leads to a robust online flirtation that moves into the real world about a year after her husband’s death. Ash is living at home, mired in grief as well as her own mental health struggles, and she’s none too happy to see her mom dating—but particularly this handsome, egregiously suave Nick Radcliffe. Ash begins to notice some inconsistencies with his stories and his past, so she enlists Paddy’s ex-girlfriend Jane to help her investigate. Meanwhile, Ash’s story continues to intercut that of the mysterious man who is now married to his former girlfriend—and still up to his old tricks. Jewell’s cutting between past and present certainly allows revelations to ooze out at a slow, controlled pace; even as the reader makes obvious connections, the full picture remains obscure. Jewell has written some incredibly engaging and strong female characters, Nina, Ash, and Jane foremost among them. What would it have been like to split the narrative between them instead of giving so much voice—and thus narrative power—to the male antagonist?
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781668033876
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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
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