Despite more complications than a 12-month pregnancy, there’s less suspense here than in a three-minute egg.
As if to prove that the relative success of Stone Barrington’s most recent thriller (A Delicate Touch, 2018) was a fluke, Woods drags back the surviving baddies for a limp sequel that proves mainly that enough is enough.
The case against Rance Damien, horribly scarred but not killed by the fire that resulted when Stone’s techie, Bob Cantor, blew up the control center of the nefarious H. Thomas & Sons Bank, has fallen apart because all the incriminating records of Damien and bank patriarch Henry Thomas’ malfeasance were destroyed in the blaze. So Damien’s out of jail and intent on getting revenge against Stone. It’s a fool’s errand, as any one of the dozens of criminal masterminds who’ve tried to kill the cop-turned-lawyer-turned–conspicuous consumer could have warned him, because the professional killers hired to eliminate him will always miss whatever they aim at, often killing someone else instead and leaving their target “peacefully in the knowledge that neither of the two men shot in the ass was himself.” The stakes are raised, though the tension isn’t increased an iota, when Thomas and Damien decide to back the presidential campaign of Florida Republican Sen. Joseph Box, whose likely opponent is Secretary of State Holly Barker, one of Stone’s bevy of ex-lovers. Overnight Box begins to talk like less of a blooming idiot thanks to the ministrations of Harvard-trained speechwriter Ari Kramer. As if he’s not smarting enough already, Damien soon learns that Thomas’ secretary Elise Grant, getting wind of her bosses’ murderous schemes, defects to Stone, whose current inamorata, New York Times reporter Jamie Cox, publishes a blistering takedown of H. Thomas & Sons just as they’re about to be acquired by an equally conscience-free hedge fund. Will this be the time that Stone and his team finally go too far? Of course it won’t.
Despite more complications than a 12-month pregnancy, there’s less suspense here than in a three-minute egg.Pub Date: March 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1928-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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