A notably entertaining caper that will keep readers hooked on King’s books.
In King’s 10th crime novel in his Travelers series, the heroes are always one step ahead of their often inept adversaries.
Randy and Jodi Sutton (whose names are both aliases) are professional grifters in Putney, Ohio, with plans to blackmail a vulnerable prosecuting attorney, Terry Brighton. For this, they reluctantly enlist Brighton’s regular escort, college student Chrissie Makarova, who’s involved in sex work only so she can afford special extras for her mother, who’s in a nursing home. Things quickly fall apart, which sets the tone for this fast-moving tale. Brighton fights back against the Suttons’ plan with the help of a compromised FBI agent named Joe Smith, who’s very good at what he does. The rest of the plot brings in additional bad guys, hair’s-breadth escapes, and technological wizardry. At one point, the action moves from Ohio to Chicago for a diamonds-and-cash heist, which turns out just as difficult as the blackmailing scheme. It’s no spoiler to say that Randy and Jodi eventually end up miles away from the scenes of their crimes, having survived yet again, luxuriating in a hot tub and planning their next caper; the novel’s appeal is in how they get away. King has been telling tales of these characters for a while and he knows how to deliver punchy, clipped dialogue: “She’s an escort. She’s already in the game—just not our game.” He’s also has created a classic husband-and-wife team whom readers will love to watch in action; they’re are vaguely Robin Hood–like figures in that they steal from the morally compromised, although the poor will have to wait until the Suttons get their cut. Some of the action strains credulity, but that’s part of the fun, as are the nailbiter escapes. Randi and Jodi’s job isn’t for the faint of heart, which is why this cool duo—who never, ever panic—is so good at it.
A notably entertaining caper that will keep readers hooked on King’s books.Pub Date: July 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781952711152
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Blurred Lines Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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