A brutal, fast-moving tale targeting readers who can take it and ask for more.
Australian TV writer Simpson’s first novel sets his franchise heroine, Melbourne forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jane Halifax, against an exceptionally sadistic serial killer.
Billionaire Nigel Woods is found impaled on the spear of a famous sculpture in his mansion. Franco Bernero, who ran the Ferraro Foundation after leaving Victoria’s Upper House in disgrace, is found stretched to the point of breaking on a custom-made vertical rack in his own home. What do the two murders have in common besides stomach-churning cruelty? Inspector Eric Ringer, the Victoria Police’s Head of Homicide, wants answers from his ex-lover, Jane Halifax, and she obliges with a quick read: The ritualistic killings were methodical, organized, and premeditated, though it’s hard to tell whether the motive is resentment of the wealthy, revenge for tax evasion, or hatred of the Catholic Church, since both victims were prominent Catholics subjected to medieval torture. By the time this last theory is boosted by the murder of Michael McGill, a former priest defrocked 20 years ago for sexual offenses, Ringer has focused his attention on Tomas Kurtza, who served 15 years for kidnapping and rape before leaving a DNA sample at one of the crime scenes and vanishing. Halifax, who thinks the third killing less carefully planned and executed than the first two, tries to get a clearer sense of the victims and the leading suspect by spending time with Woods’ widow, Melissa; with Cayden Voss, a performance coach who praised Kurtza’s acting chops while he was still in prison; and with Ela Bey, a librarian who insists that she’s Kurtza’s common-law wife. Both Ringer and Halifax will be surprised at where this trail of tears ultimately leads them.
A brutal, fast-moving tale targeting readers who can take it and ask for more.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9798212377133
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.
Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.
Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593548981
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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