Less compelling as a story than as a richly teeming historical canvas.
The seamy side of silent pictures.
After killing her abusive husband in self-defense, Flavia Purcell leaves Wichita to stay with her grandfather, photographer Bill Ogden, in Los Angeles. In 1916, the Hollywood studios have yet to establish themselves, and filmmaking is a dog-eat-dog world. Clyde Grady, who’s graduated from one-reel comedies to stag films, joins forces with Irene Buntnagel, of the West Coast Art Company, and her husband, George Kaplan, of the film company Provident, whose sex film starring streetwalkers Trudy Crombie and Victoria Tessart encourages him to propose a series of “queer stuff.” The X-rated films produced by Magnificat Educational Distribution Company, Incorporated, are so successful despite flouting the laws of the Postal Service that they provide the thread that (barely) holds together several far-reaching subplots. Small-time criminal Ezra Crombie, Trudy’s long-estranged husband, turns up determined to make a go of it with her. Henry Seghers, who meets Ezra aboard a freight train the two of them have hopped, becomes Bill’s assistant and falls in love with Flavia. Tommy Gill, a vaudeville star whose career in film comedies is on a steep decline, finds himself co-starring with Trudy’s two children by Ezra, who punch and humiliate him onscreen to universal laughter. Postal inspector Melvin van de Kamp switches from patronizing the workers in a local brothel to watching the latest blue movies the madam sets up for him. The city grows sharply divided over the question of whether the U.S. should enter the Great War. The roster of hangers-on is obviously headed for a day of reckoning, but when it finally arrives in a series of violent confrontations, it can’t help seeming anticlimactic.
Less compelling as a story than as a richly teeming historical canvas.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781641294935
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
