An absorbing detective tale with plenty of action and antiheroes.
In Goldman’s (The Shape-Shifters, 2015, etc.) series thriller, written with private investigator Malatesta, a New York City PI works to uncover hard evidence against a very dangerous con artist.
French actress Sophie Guichard hasn’t starred in a movie in many years. Now in her 60s, she falls for the charms of the much younger Tony Orsini. Sophie’s skeptical son, Jean-Jérôme, nicknamed “J-J,” digs into Tony’s background, and it turns out that he’s a con man with familial ties to the Corsican mob. He also has a girlfriend on the side, Paulette Guyot, with whom he’s been opening sex clubs that cater to many kinds of customers—including pedophiles. J-J reveals this to his mother, but she remains unconvinced of Tony’s vileness. J-J then calls his friend, Detective Jamie Rourke, a New York City Police Department liaison in Brussels, who, in turn, gets in touch with PI Max Christian. The former cop is much closer to Paulette than Jamie is, as she’s currently scouting Miami club locations. Max, however, is busy trying to care of his fractured family, including his wife, Meridew, and teenage son, Jay—the latter of whom a mob boss kidnapped and tortured a year ago. Still, the PI offers to act as a consultant and kicks the case to his pal, Nick Testa, who’s already established in Florida. But Nick and his goddaughter, Dani Longo, soon need Max’s help in South Beach. Max goes undercover at Club Paradoxe to obtain solid proof of Tony’s illegal activities. Unfortunately, some people catch on to the investigation and target Max, Nick, and Dani, which could put others in peril, as well. Goldman’s novel showcases a couple of savvy but heavily flawed detectives. Max’s persistent drinking, for example, only adds to his troubles, despite the fact that he recently began watering down his drinks with tonic. And both he and Nick, a former special ops soldier, are prone to violence, as well as occasional racial slurs, as when they repeatedly refer to a Vietnamese villain as a “gook.” The bad guys, meanwhile, are involved in multiple atrocities, including human trafficking. They prove to be potent threats to the detectives, and at least one person close to Max winds up in the hospital. The bulk of the novel is made up of dialogue, befitting a story in which characters must constantly hash out investigation specifics. There’s also a fair amount of diverting tough talk; at one point, Dani says that an armed man’s insult “was his death warrant.” However, the book culminates in a rather strange climax that jumps ahead in time, taking place “when the war was over and the smoke had cleared.” Characters then summarize what unfolded during the time jump, but these recapped confrontations lack suspense, as the people telling the stories have clearly survived. Still, the ending offers a thorough resolution that nicely ties up various subplots. Even Max’s old cop partner, Tina Falcone, takes on—and resolves—a murder case.
An absorbing detective tale with plenty of action and antiheroes.Pub Date: June 19, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 231
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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