An often-entertaining adventure story about fighting back and settling scores.
In Blackwood’s thriller, the target of a worldwide sex-trafficking ring and her two new allies aim to turn the tables on their pursuers and spark a worldwide revolution.
At first, Judy Ruono seems to be a guileless 20-something, while the seemingly omnipotent Foundation is portrayed as a many-tentacled organization that enslaves young women as part of their plans to blackmail powerful figures around the world. However, it soon becomes clear that the Foundation isn’t the unassailable juggernaut it seems to be, and that Judy’s no pushover. Although she’s initially fooled by the Foundation’s promises of an overseas acting gig, it isn’t long before she begins to unravel the awful truth about “Panomnes Productions” and the “Gartfoil Agency.” She’s helped in this endeavor by a couple of new acquaintances with whom she bonds after surviving a murder attempt: former lawyer James Torquil Graham and his friend Roddy, both from Scotland. The trio are undeniably brave and resourceful, but they aren’t superheroes; Blackwood pointedly renders them as ordinary folks. Indeed, they effectively embody one of the novel’s central themes: that ordinary people can be powerful when push comes to shove. This is developed further when Judy moves beyond the goal of her own liberation and sets out to champion other victims of the wealthy Foundation. In many ways, Blackwood delivers a revenge fantasy that feels well suited to the present day, despite its future setting. It’s too often bogged down by unwieldy lines, however, as in this late sketch of a major villain: “He had an air that denied any possibility of reform, but only of stunned acceptance for a while with the pretence of cooperation with humanity before, in time, another means might present itself for taking revenge on society for whatever were its faults in his eyes.” Still, the adventure remains engaging, largely due to the lively interplay between Judy, James, and Roddy, and the triumphant glee they find in taking on corrupt and dangerous institutions.
An often-entertaining adventure story about fighting back and settling scores.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2024
ISBN: 9781805141112
Page Count: -
Publisher: Troubador Publishers
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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