Above-average entertainment diminished somewhat by a jittery plot that hops about like some deranged rabbit.
You know you’re in the Land of Noir when the two most sympathetic characters are a drug dealer and an embezzler.
Quinlan’s second novel, after the very promising Smoked (2006), is not just noir, but stygian noir; it spurts not just blood, but bathtubs full of it; characters inflict violence not just happily, but with sadistic embellishments that teeter on the edge of gratuitous. Linebacker large and matinee-idol handsome (“Okay, not the brightest bulb in the package,” admits new ladyfriend Dot Racine), Dick Miller lands a job at Feldman Real Estate even though he’s just four months out of the slammer. He may have done the mandatory five for possession with intent, but Dick is also a world-class typist, and lovely Dot needs one. She runs the real-estate company for old man Feldman and is in the process of bilking the firm out of heavy money with the help of equally lovely, though utterly naïve Lydia Sante. Dot likes Dick. Dot takes Dick to bed. Dot, as it happens, does not have long to live. Enter Nestor, a stone killer whose feelings for Dot encompass both love and hate. And Breeze, Nestor’s female counterpart, whose love-hate relationship is with the world. For complicated reasons, both have come to view Dot as a target of opportunity. Nor are they by any means the only ones available as suspects when, on a snowy night in late December, Dot is gunned down. Dick takes the murder personally. He cares for Dot, would give a lot to know who put her bullet-riddled body in the trunk of his car. The trouble is—what with one thing and another that passed on that kaleidoscopic night—he can’t be absolutely sure it wasn’t him.
Above-average entertainment diminished somewhat by a jittery plot that hops about like some deranged rabbit.Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-34982-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
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
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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