A twisty and poignant debut.
Alex Zarabian thought life was good with his new wife, Mina, until the day she disappeared.
Alex, the chief financial officer of a startup that aims to cure cancer, loves being married to successful romance author Mina Richards, and he thought she was happy, too. However, they'd argued on Monday when Alex suggested they start a family, and Mina left their Boston home for her little writing cottage in Provincetown. It wasn’t unusual for Mina to retreat to her cottage to write and think, and he thought giving her space for a few days would help, but it’s out of character for her not to respond to his texts. He only truly starts to worry when he goes up to Provincetown after work on Wednesday and finds her wedding and engagement rings in a little ceramic bowl on her desk. Then he learns that a neighbor saw Mina load a cake carrier into her car Monday night, evidently on her way to her parents’ house for dinner, which they confirm, but that’s where the trail ends. At a loss, Alex files a missing person report and starts digging for clues himself. When her phone and her car, with her wallet and keys locked inside, are found, Alex truly panics. Then there’s that new manuscript Mina left with her editor that was unlike anything she’d ever written. Turns out Alex didn’t know as much about his wife as he thought. The pseudonymous Kosa puts her real-world experience as a clinical psychologist to work exploring trauma and its insidiousness while deftly weaving together two seemingly unrelated narratives: Alex’s first-person account and one that focuses on a troubled young waitress named Layla. The story takes a bit of time to find its footing, and the passages about Alex’s workplace woes seem extraneous. However, once it picks up the pace, readers, especially those that appreciate less-than-tidy resolutions, will be hooked.
A twisty and poignant debut.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-15563
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Expert, but unsurprising.
The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.
If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.
Expert, but unsurprising.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538770382
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK TO SCREEN
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
© Copyright 2024 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.
