Readers who haven’t OD’d on The Silence of the Lambs and its many imitators (the otherwise excellent Birdman was one) should...
The world of child sexual molestation is explored in graphic and disturbing detail in this nastily efficient thriller, a follow-up to British author Hayder’s impressive debut (Birdman, 1999).
Once again, the protagonist is burnt-out police detective Jack Caffery, burdened by memories of his brother’s long-ago disappearance (and probably murder by a registered sex offender), and his girlfriend Rebecca’s arduous recovery from a brutal rape. The story focuses initially on the discovery of a London couple in their suburban home, severely beaten and dehydrated, their eight-year-old son missing. Hayder builds tension expertly, as Caffery (under the watchful friendly eye of his boss, Hogarthian lesbian DCI Danniella Souness) enters the maze of sex crime files, gradually discovering linkages between his current case and the criminal history of Ivan Penderecki, the neighbor who had almost certainly murdered young Ewan Caffery. In a capably handled series of parallel plots (of which there are, arguably, one or two too many), Hayder depicts several ongoing forensic examinations and investigations, the ordeal of another London family victimized by “the troll” (as the killer is now named), the apprehension of wretched Tracey Lamb (the sister of a sexual predator, who had “appeared” in films he took of molestations in progress), the stories of surviving former victims, and the machinations of the (uncaught) troll, a suitably monstrous invert whose acts constitute a “treatment” devised to restore his own sexual health. There’s rather too much attention paid to Caffery’s troubled intimacy with Rebecca (which provides both contrast to the plot’s emphasis on perversions, and grimly ironic echoes of them), and a climactic last-minute rescue has “movie version” written all over it. Nevertheless, Hayder makes most of it work.
Readers who haven’t OD’d on The Silence of the Lambs and its many imitators (the otherwise excellent Birdman was one) should find Hayder’s sequel a salutary and gripping scare.Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-49695-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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