A characteristically violent denouement for a girl given hell by just about everybody.
The ultimate final girl reaches the bloody end of her frayed, traumatized rope.
How readers absorb this last volume of Jones’ hyperviolent, gory ode to horror flicks probably depends largely on their appetite for the genre itself. What’s on offer here is a lot, not only in terms of blood ’n’ guts but also a fat stack of backstory and a dizzying cast. Jade Daniels, the reluctant but relentless heroine of the trilogy, has returned to Proofrock, Idaho, after her second prison stint for the events chronicled in My Heart Is a Chainsaw (2021) and Don’t Fear the Reaper (2022). Her wealthy best friend, Letha Mondragon-Tompkins, has gotten her a job teaching high school history, but all the meds and therapy available aren’t really cutting it. Before long, tiny threads—a real estate project at the site of the previous massacre at “Camp Blood,” a pair of missing teenagers, and a raging forest fire started by a grieving game warden—have exploded into an infernal nightmare. The writing is still boxing-match ferocious and precise, but while every word is carefully chosen, they’re not all in service of explaining what’s really happening. The plotlines are often steeped in urban legend, which are gleefully punctuated by Jade’s rat-a-tat-tat horror movie references à la Ready Player One. That’s catnip for horror fans, and the images Jones conjures would give some of the movies a run for their money. Whether it’s Jade’s rapist father back from the dead, a murderous child mutilating the townsfolk, a pack of rampaging bears tearing through the flames, or the titular ghost making the rounds at the local lake, it’s real peek-between-your-fingers stuff—when you can work out what exactly happened.
A characteristically violent denouement for a girl given hell by just about everybody.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9781668011669
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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