Not twisty or unexpected, but tense—and with a surprising sweetness in the relationship between the brothers.
The American debut from French writer Giebel is a solid if straight-ahead suspense novel about two brothers whom gross injustice seeks out again and again.
Léonard (his name a wink to Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men) is a large, powerful, sweet-tempered teen who’s relentlessly bullied and taken advantage of because of certain intellectual disabilities. Léonard was a foundling, discovered battered and bruised in a ditch and taken in at age 5 by kind, heartbroken Mona. The boy’s favorite keepsake is a postcard from Glen Affric, Scotland, where he’s been led to believe his brother, Jorge, Mona’s beloved elder son, lives. But Glen Affric is a cover story. Jorge has been convicted of two murders he didn’t commit, and for 16 years he’s been in prison, a status that has cemented the family’s status as shunned and despised outsiders in their town. On the day when Jorge is paroled, Léonard lands in prison himself, briefly but disastrously, after—not knowing his strength—he defends himself too vigorously and injures his tormentors. Léonard emerges from lockup psychologically and physically wounded, and he’s bewildered and upset to learn where Jorge has been. But the vulnerable brothers soon grow close, and as the horrors and injustices continue to mount, they grow ever closer. Jorge is on parole, under constant threat of being returned to prison if he loses his job or responds to the townspeople’s taunts, abuses, provocations. Framed for theft and fired once, he takes on lucrative illicit work and acquires, just in case, a bug-out bag, which he and Léonard bury in the backyard. The reader knows it cannot stay buried for long. Sure enough, Jorge is framed for another murder—of the woman he loves, a restaurateur he felt forced to break up with in order to spare her business and her reputation. The novel, a bit slow to launch, picks up major momentum around its midpoint, when the brothers kidnap a somewhat sympathetic cop and go on the run. The book, and the brothers, are headed to a destination and a denouement that seem predetermined, but Giebel delivers them and us to the rendezvous with some panache.
Not twisty or unexpected, but tense—and with a surprising sweetness in the relationship between the brothers.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780063393929
Page Count: 720
Publisher: HarperVia
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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BOOK REVIEW
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