A smart, tense tale that keeps its classic cop drama relevant to current events.
A Philadelphia police detective looks into a shooting that may have ties to the Islamic State group in this thriller.
A good cop gets shot in a bad part of town, and it’s an all-too-common tragedy. But when the attack happens right before an event of international significance, it’s another thing entirely. Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States is underway, culminating with the World Meeting of Families, a massive set of celebrations that will bring hundreds of thousands of worshipers and travelers to Philadelphia. Only a couple of weeks beforehand, Officer Jake Loman is shot along the procession route by a man claiming to be acting on behalf of IS. While Loman survives, a chain of incidents unfolds that no one could have predicted. Detective Frank Benson, a sometime-black sheep of the Philadelphia Police Department, is unexpectedly assigned to investigate the case even though it seems open and shut at first glance. Meanwhile, he ends up paired to work on the probe with Ophelia “O” Brown-Thurman, an old friend and Loman’s platoon sergeant. In addition, Veronica Cartwright, another personal connection of Benson’s and a Secret Service agent on assignment for the pope’s visit, ends up looking into the possible terrorist link. A tangled web of old wounds and feelings emerges—everyone involved has a rocky past, but they all nonetheless have to unite to figure out the truth behind a crime that ties violent extremists, corrupt cops, and plenty of twists together. Goldstein (Murder and Mayhem in Manayunk, 2016, etc.) spins a taut page-turner with an eye toward the way international threats mix with problems closer to home. The novel’s prose is solid, and its pacing is fast, making it easy to identify the most important details of each scene while still maintaining a complex plot. The characters also work well together, particularly Benson, who’s a classic hard-boiled hero. His previous struggles with addiction and shame are deftly handled, a touch that helps prevent the sense of his character's getting lost in the procedural elements of the story.
A smart, tense tale that keeps its classic cop drama relevant to current events.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 211
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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