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THE LACEY CONFESSION

Too much filler makes for a humdrum thriller.

Veteran tracker Walter Sherman finds himself slogging neck-deep through some of the 20th century’s best-kept secrets in this second novel in Greener’s “The Locator” series (The Knowland Retribution, 2006).

British lord and international smuggler nonpareil Frederick Lacey had his hands in a fair share of the last century’s goings-on. Ever hear of the Kennedy brothers, Jack and Bobby? Yeah, Lacey’s the guy who killed them. And there’s plenty more where that came from, all of which will be coming to light now that Lacey has died, leaving behind his enormous fortune and, more importantly, his diary, which his lawyer, the estimable Anthony Wells, has strict orders to make public. There are quite a few people, however, who’d like to get their hands on Lacey’s papers before the yearning masses get a look, and when low-level Foreign Service bureaucrat Harry Levine goes missing with the diary in hand, his aunt, the lovely but treacherous pop-star Conchita Crystal, calls retired tracker Walter Sherman—aka The Locator—to track him down. In the ensuing chase, Sherman tangos with hired killers, old Kennedy clan operatives, the CIA and his own memories of past failure as he tries to keep Levine alive and the Lacey papers out of the wrong hands. It’s all more than a little preposterous. More problematic are the tedious, digression-filled character backstories. Dull and ham-handed, these sequences work less to bring Greener’s characters to life than to put his readers to sleep. And the seemingly endless passages wherein Sherman and his buddies Billy and Ike laugh it up around their favorite St. John bar—well, those are just painful. The action and espionage scenes are plenty entertaining and well-plotted. Too bad Greener couldn’t just let them be.

Too much filler makes for a humdrum thriller.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-7387-0870-4

Page Count: 456

Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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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THEN SHE WAS GONE

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Pub Date: April 24, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

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