By the end, readers will be too befuddled to care.
A Kenyan expatriate, now a pampered New York soccer mom, becomes a super sleuth and sharpshooter in a matter of days as she investigates an international human trafficking operation that branches out into even more sinister enterprises.
This debut is original, if confusing. The narrative teems with menacing characters, global conspiracies and gun battles that rock protagonist Mugure Sivonen’s world. Mugure is married to wealthy attorney Zack, and they live comfortably with their adopted 5-year-old son, Kobi. When Mugure discovers a scrap of paper with a phone number and Kobi’s name written on it, she’s propelled into a dark world of criminal activity that appears to center around the adoption agency that delivered Kobi to their door. The Kasla Agency was recommended by Zack’s friend Mark, a millionaire landscaper who reputedly employs illegals. Mark also is married to Mugure’s friend, Melinda, a singer, but she divorces him before she leaves New York to perform in other countries, including at Kenya’s Festival of Rags. Soon, Mugure lives in a constant state of paranoia, and almost everyone she comes into contact with is suspect—a mysterious caller, a frightening gunman, an ominous curio shop owner, a crazed 75-year-old carjacker—not to mention some members of her social circle who also seem rather shady. Mugure’s unsure whom to trust, so she grabs Kobi and ends up in Ohio at an old friend’s home, where, in a flash, she becomes a crack shot with every gun she handles. She also decides her son will be safe if she leaves him there while she heads to Kenya to find the answers to all of her questions. And she has a bunch. There, two more old friends come to her aid and help her meet more shady characters, visit witnesses, break into buildings, and engage in chases and gunfights with the bad guys. At one point, Mugure displays her superhuman powers by shooting with both hands—remember, she’s only recently learned to shoot—and disarms an adversary with a defensive kick to his hand. Before all issues are wrapped up, Mugure addresses a few subplots involving relatives and sorts through what seems like a cast of thousands to figure out who the bad guys really are.
By the end, readers will be too befuddled to care.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1491-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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