A patchy read but with a twist ending that will dazzle fans of the genre.
A shocking local murder case revives a down-on-his-luck lawyer’s unraveling career in criminal attorney Hamilton’s debut suspense thriller.
The author draws on his own life’s work as an attorney in this fast-paced debut chronicling the exploits of Canadian lawyer Hyman Kazan. Not a particularly likable nor well-adjusted protagonist, 50-something Kazan has seen better days. His legal career is sputtering, and he and his girlfriend, Briar, are on the rocks. Everything, especially the dreary Vancouver weather, seems to remind him of his shortcomings. The ideal distraction soon presents itself when Simon Westfall, a young drug-abusing migrant, is found dead outside a local clinic. Westfall’s death became immediately suspicious to a clinic nurse who noted that he didn’t have overdose levels of drugs in his system. With an undetermined cause of death, foul play is suspected, and investigators descend on the case. Kazan suspects trial judge Craig Smith, who’s bisexual, because not only was he the last person to see Westfall alive (after a druggy dalliance with him), but he’s also been secretly romancing Briar. A race against time ensues as Kazan feverishly builds his case against his prime suspect, and Smith rushes to conceal evidence and exonerate himself before he jeopardizes his political career. While Kazan’s struggle for meaning is ever present throughout the novel, it’s often punctuated with overwrought prose, as when describing Kazan’s avoidance of a mundane daily existence: “He would never let the easily swallowed opioid of routine dissolve his lost and fractured soul.” Nevertheless, there is also some assured storytelling here; Hamilton effectively weaves past and present together to fill out not only Westfall’s gritty personal history, but also Kazan’s booze-soaked despair, bad luck, and personal and professional demons. Peripheral characters are also well rendered, including Smith, the nefarious judge. As the puzzle pieces of the mystery fall into place, Kazan seems to find his footing as a rejuvenated litigator and a man. Then the author drops an unexpected but plausible ending—one that will likely undermine any previous assumptions about his misunderstood legal-eagle protagonist.
A patchy read but with a twist ending that will dazzle fans of the genre.Pub Date: July 6, 2022
ISBN: 9781663240071
Page Count: 230
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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