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LEAVE NO TRACE

This thriller may feature state-of-the-art AI, but its solid craftsmanship is timeless.

The second book in the British Midlands–set Kat and Lock series reteams what may be crime fiction’s oddest couple, given that one half of the pair isn’t even human.

A man has been found dead on Nuneaton’s Mount Judd, his nude body tied to a cross and his ears cut off. To identify the victim and solve the crime, the Warwickshire police force’s DCS Kat Frank once again partners with Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entity Lock, the world’s first AI detective, who takes the form of a 3-D holographic image of a 30-something Black man. According to Professor Adaiba Okonedo—the Black scientist who created Lock and whose personal experience with racism has left her wary of cops—the idea is to use bias-free AI to “rebuild public trust and confidence in policing.” Also good: In a matter of seconds, the AI detective can do things such as “cross-check the victim’s facial characteristics, height and weight with all social media posts matching white men between twenty-five and forty ­in the Nuneaton area.” To mystery readers not predisposed to reaching for tech thrillers, the premise may sound intimidatingly geeky, but once Callaghan establishes her terms, it’s one fleet, accessible scene after another. For the Star Trek savvy, conversations between Kat and her literal-minded partner may recall exchanges with Mr. Spock (Lock: “Your entire theory is built upon nothing but your imagination”; Kat: “It’s called empathy, Lock”). The novel’s central question—should humans fear replacement by machines?—hums throughout, but never hinders the story’s forward momentum, and the plot’s big reveal is unlikely to be foreseen by even the AI-abetted reader.

This thriller may feature state-of-the-art AI, but its solid craftsmanship is timeless.

Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025

ISBN: 9780593736852

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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

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WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS

A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.

Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.

Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.

A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.

Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025

ISBN: 9780593548981

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Berkley

Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024

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