A thrilling tale that delves into the family dynamics and challenges of running a business.
In this novel, ambition and greed cause a family to split apart, resulting in suffering that will last for decades.
From when they were children, Rudi and Gus Considine could not have been more different. While Gus did well in school, encouraged by his father to get a good education—eventually studying marketing—Rudi was the opposite. He left school at the age of 13 after receiving horrible, violent punishment from his teachers in response to his inability to read. He pleads with his father, Malachi, to let him work in his butcher shop and picks up the trade quickly. Soon, Rudi finds new and innovative ways to grow the business. He opens a meat-packing plant and several shops, eventually forging Hawthorne Meats Limited, using his keen business instincts as well as his fearsome determination. Rudi’s ambition soon brings him to the decision that he needs Malachi to use his land and home as collateral for bank loans to expand the business. Unfortunately, Malachi wants no part of this plan and Gus also rejects the idea, which ignites Rudi’s fierce anger and temper. Then Rudi’s friend and personal assistant, Kevin Quilty, speaks to his boss about a hypothetical strategy involving hiring someone to kill a person and using the family’s meatpacking facility to get rid of the body. Not long after the exchange, Rudi’s wife, Penny, finds Malachi at a hospital, dying of a gunshot wound. Following the funeral, Rudi approaches his brother about selling Malachi’s land to help the business and Gus once again refuses. In this novel, McKenna skillfully weaves together a story of one family through several decades, showing the changes Rudi and Gus go through and how their relationships with each other and the people around them transform through time. This is an engaging, fast-paced story filled with treachery, backstabbing, and blind ambition (“Nothing could tear Rudi away from the strategic and tactical imperatives involved in building up his business”). The narrative moves quickly and smoothly while managing to carefully construct the foundation for the brothers’ rivalry.
A thrilling tale that delves into the family dynamics and challenges of running a business.Pub Date: May 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781738541010
Page Count: 326
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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