This meticulously crafted, sad, and verbose crime story requires a patient reader.
In Litton’s trilogy-concluding thriller, an evil presence holds a small Kansas town in its grip.
It’s October 1934, and drought and falling wheat prices are taking their toll on the farming community of Elim, Kansas, sowing seeds of desperation and despair. In a vacant schoolhouse, on a drizzly Saturday night, six friends—including town barber and mayor Pup Sorell—meet for a spirited night of poker and banter until a masked gunman kicks in the door, takes all the money, and locks them in the storm cellar. Although nobody is physically hurt, the robbery sets off a chain reaction of suspicion and vengeance. The cast includes Faris Clayton, a high-school senior and soulful philosopher; Father James Patrick Nolan, the town’s spiritually haunted Catholic Priest, who seeks solace in the writings of St. Augustine but finds comfort only in Pup’s moonshine; and Elle Wales, an innocent 14-year-old girl. Pup’s barbershop is the social hub of the town, and Pup is the dispenser of news, gossip, and cheer—until he is not. The slowly unwinding narrative, written in the vernacular and cadence of its setting (as when a character describes a foul odor as “like a hind whiff of the old schoolmarm”), is a character-driven tale that overflows with details of the period’s economic devastation, news of the day, and the specifics of the many poker games organized by Pup. The specter of death hangs over the novel from the opening scene, which depicts the murder of Gene Moot, a local bootlegger. Thought-provoking, mystical ponderings begin and end the chapters, paralleling the mental anguish and gradual psychological deterioration of several primary characters as they are felled by the demons of guilt. However, in terms of the progression of the narrative, they are digressions that interrupt the action.
This meticulously crafted, sad, and verbose crime story requires a patient reader.Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781637897096
Page Count: 497
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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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