The multilayered case gets so crazy that it may provide escapist solace after all.
Want a break from the ruthless 24/7 cycle of political ups and downs? Stay miles away from this latest case for Miami attorney Jack Swyteck (The Girl in the Glass Box, 2019, etc.), ripped not so much from the headlines as from your deepest electoral nightmares.
Despite the manifest character blemishes—blustering, lying, uncontrollable adulteries, and tweetstorms that nearly got him impeached—President Malcolm MacLeod seems headed to a narrow victory over Florida Sen. Evan Stahl Jr., whose ratings took a nose dive when his refusal to identify the party with whom he’d cheated on his now-estranged wife, Gwen, of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, led to widespread speculation, eagerly fed by MacLeod, that his lover was (gasp!) another man. Stahl’s only path to the presidency is the hope that five members of the Electoral College will break ranks and cast their votes for Stahl, who won 5 million more votes than MacLeod despite losing the Electoral College. And at least one elector is ready to turn faithless: Charlotte Holmes, the associate and hand-picked successor to gun rights lobbyist Madeline Chisel. Will her principled defection start a groundswell? Not if MacLeod loyalist Paulette Barrow, the Florida attorney general, has anything to say about it. Barrow promptly files a suit against Charlotte as “unfit” so that the Republican governor, Terry Mulvane, can replace her with a reliable loyalist. Seeking Jack’s legal representation with the perfect come-on—electoral law expert Matthew Kipner “specifically told me not to hire you”—Charlotte stiffens her spine and prepares for weeks of public abuse. What she doesn’t prepare for is the wholly unexpected but obligatory trial for murder that simultaneously deepens her peril, confirms this headlong legal thriller’s genre credentials, and ensures that no one will mistake it for real life. The complications that follow are expertly spun, and the courtroom maneuvers on both sides are impressively baroque, but the gorgeous Electoral College premise marks the beginning of a wild ride that runs off the rails long before the fade-out.
The multilayered case gets so crazy that it may provide escapist solace after all.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-291504-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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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