An intelligent account of the political chaos in Mali that wallows in a tone of amoral coldness.
In Thorpe’s thriller, an American academic in search of a rare manuscript in Mali is suddenly entangled in a civil war.
In 2012,an unnamed college professor from the University of California, Berkeley, travels to Mali, partly as a matter of scholarly interest and partly to partake of the services of local sex workers. Also, he works for a manuscript collector named Foraes-Muriat, and he hopes to make enough money from their collaboration to help his soon-to-be ex-wife start anew in Tucson, Arizona, and pay his daughter’s college tuition. However, Mali becomes increasingly dangerous as war erupts; Tuareg and Arab Muslim jihadis declare their independence from the government in the quest to establish their own theocracy. As the violence escalates, particularly in the northern part of the country, the French military moves in. Despite the gathering volatility, Foraes-Muriat convinces the professor to travel north to procure an authentic copy of the Tarikh al fattash, a manuscript that promises to be of revolutionary significance. Lured by money, the professor accepts despite the danger he’ll surely face, and he comes to have doubts about Foraes-Muriat’s true intentions—a predicament that forces him to confront the thorny question of whether he’s a scholar working to preserve a culture or a colonialist thief. Over the course of the novel, Thorpe astutely depicts the complex political and cultural contours of Mali. Also, with unflinching bluntness, he describes the dissolution of the professor, who sets his sights on a new life with Molly, one of his students who’s more than 30 years his junior. However, the overall bleakness of the novel, which presents an unremitting portrayal of a dark nihilism, finally becomes exhausting, and the conclusion is less a denouement than a simple terminus. In the end, many readers may not feel that the novel’s artistic and intellectual offerings compensate for its moral austerity.
An intelligent account of the political chaos in Mali that wallows in a tone of amoral coldness.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2022
ISBN: 979-8405046662
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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