A tense, offbeat story that concentrates more on generating suspense than revealing frights.
In Zell’s (Urban Limit, 2017, etc.) supernatural thriller, a reporter and a medical examiner team up to investigate a string of bizarre murders.
In 1968, Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Todd Worwick makes news by supporting a much-needed irrigation project. Investigative journalist Deanne Mulhenney is covering the story diligently, but it’s a far cry from her earlier series on child abuse in the church. Then Sara Poole, a California medical examiner, arrives in Arizona seeking Deanne’s help with a potential murder mystery. Sara has connected two apparent drowning deaths in Los Angeles with two others in Phoenix. But the LA victims were found in places where there was no water source nearby. The two women quickly uncover another connection between the four deaths, which ties to an unsolved disappearance from years ago. They further link the case to Worwick, and they fear that the candidate may be the killer’s next victim. A dark sedan keeps following Deanne and Sara—but the murderer may not be its driver, but something otherworldly. Zell’s novel relies not only on its mystery plot, but also on a slowly emerging supernatural presence. The investigation gradually reveals surprises about certain characters. Meanwhile, the paranormal elements, while evident, are often understated—except, perhaps, during the frantic final act. The author aptly engages readers’ senses during murder scenes, as when he describes a “stench of death” and corresponding nausea. However, Zell tempers these details with uproarious moments involving tween Donovan O’Malley; his attempts to impress Cassandra, Worwick’s daughter, tend to fail in comical ways. Deanne and Sara are astute protagonists whose collaboration eventually moves beyond platonic friendship. The ending, which takes a peculiar but not entirely incongruous turn, is unquestionably memorable.
A tense, offbeat story that concentrates more on generating suspense than revealing frights.Pub Date: March 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9847468-6-6
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Tales From Zell, Inc.
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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