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LIGHTNING ON THE SUN

As subtle as a blunt-force trauma. Not without flaws, but a work of some promise that, sadly, can never be fulfilled.

The first and last novel by the highly regarded short-story writer (Pure Slaughter Value, 1997) and founder-editor of Open City.

Bingham died last year, at age 33, but left behind this (apparently) finished volume, a dark, brooding thriller that draws heavily on his two years as a reporter for the Cambodian [CHECK]. The three key protagonists are one American innocent and two who are not so innocent. Desperate to leave Cambodia after a highly unsatisfying stint working with UNESCO restoring the country’s ancient temples, Asher plans a drug deal with his nervy, dropout girlfriend, Julie. The strategy: he'll buy a large quantity of pure heroin, which she'll sell at an enormous profit, through her sleaze-bag boss at the strip joint where she tends bar. All the two need is an unwitting sucker to bring the dope into the US. Enter Reese, a talented journalist who's going home to give a lecture at his old prep school and attend his sister’s wedding. Everything, however, quickly spins out of control: Asher is robbed and uses a loan shark to raise the capital for the buy; Julie, in a fit of paranoia about her employer, steals the drugs from Reese, who now finds himself being hunted by a stranger for no apparent reason. Eventually the action returns to Cambodia and a brutal yet all-too-believable climax. The author was clearly in the thrall of Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers (albeit with echoes of Graham Greene, Malraux, and Conrad), but Lightning's first third is more pretentious and less focused than that brilliant work. Bingham lacks Stone's sense of the evil at work in the universe, as well as his precision and crackling dialogue. As the narrative continues, though, it picks up steam and has its own power.

As subtle as a blunt-force trauma. Not without flaws, but a work of some promise that, sadly, can never be fulfilled.

Pub Date: May 16, 2000

ISBN: 0-385-48856-4

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000

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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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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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THE SILENT PATIENT

Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.

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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

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