The Shabti
Megaera C. Lorenz
CamCat
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, Dashiel Quicke made a killing on the spiritualist circuit, bilking gullible believers out of their money by faking seances and communications with the dead. Now, he has dedicated himself to exposing them as the frauds they are, baring their secrets and swindles to the public. It's a hard way to scrape by in 1934, far less lucrative than his old career, but at least he can try assuaging his conscience, and if he can keep one person from falling for the lies of the spiritualist movement sweeping America, surely that's worth the worn-out shoes and patched clothes. Then Dashiel is approached after a lecture by Hermann Goschalk, and everything changes.
Hermann is an Egyptologist at a local university, and has been experiencing some unusual problems with his collection of artifacts: objects moving when nobody's around, strange sounds in the dark, and more. He begs Dashiel for help in figuring out what's really going on, because the logical (if eccentric) professor is almost on the verge of believing in ghosts. Dashiel agrees to take a look, certain that it's either a case of overactive imagination or one of the many common, if convincing, tricks of his former colleagues. Instead, the former con man finds himself up against something he can't explain away with hidden wires or sleight of hand - just as an all-too-human specter from his old life catches up to him, threatening both Dashiel and the professor he has come to care for as more than a mere client.
REVIEW: I went into this book relatively blind, knowing nothing more than the blurb and the fact that the audiobook runtime filled an empty slot in my listening rotation for the week. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to discover an intriguing, noir-tinged tale set in the Great Depression, exploring the elaborate deceptions of the spiritualists of the time, a smattering of ancient Egyptian archaeology, the closeted-in-public life of early 20th century queer Americans, and (hardly a spoiler) what happens when a real spirit enters the mix.
Dashiel is a man wounded in many ways, from a limp due to a bullet wound (not from war, but an old colleague turned enemy) to the indelible stain on his soul from the many lives he ruined and fortunes he squandered peddling false hope to desperate believers as a "spiritualist". His efforts to expose the mediums and gurus for the frauds they are through a series of talks across the country hardly makes a dent in the number of practitioners and believers, though it has made some very bitter enemies out of former associates. Hermann starts out as a simple object lesson, a "mark" he uses in his lecture to make a point about how spiritualists seem to know impossible things about clients. He is surprised, therefore, when the mild-mannered professor approaches him after the lecture and asks for help debunking the idea of haunted artifacts in his own collection. Even this early, Dashiel senses potential entanglements that he'd rather avoid, even though he eventually agrees to investigate... but his initial mundane "diagnosis" proves woefully inaccurate. Meanwhile, sparks fly between the former con artist and the rattled Egyptologist, a Jewish man who never outright speaks his orientation (neither does Dashiel) but never denies the growing attraction and feelings. Dashiel, for his part, tries to resist, convinced he's a bad luck penny who will curse anyone whose pocket he lingers in, yet unable to help himself from trying to fix Hermann's problem - even when it's clear that the problem is far beyond his area of purported expertise. When Dashiel's past catches up to him in the form of a former abusive lover, he's certain he's doomed Hermann, whose only crime is daring to care about him, but be damned if he'll see the man suffer for his sins, not without a fight... nor is Hermann, despite his outwardly innocent and harmless appearance, about to give up so easily, even when Dashiel doubts his own self-worth.
The tale moves fairly well, weaving in various characters and escalating both the haunting and the romance, as well as the growing sense of inevitable dread as the various threads of Dashiel's past and present come together, a forced reckoning with his own past and the motivations that first drove him into the spiritualism movement/con and out of it. The final leg of the story feels stretched, first when Dashiel is being toyed with by his ex and later when exploring the grand spectacle of early 20th century spirituality, a level of theater and sophistication that can cause many otherwise intelligent and rational people to fall under the sway of a charlatan; Dashiel himself does not truly condemn his former victims as simpletons, knowing from behind the scenes how ruthlessly a con can pursue a mark, how effectively they employ psychology and suggestion to exploit the same flaws in the human mind that have always and will always be vulnerable to manipulation by bad actors. I found the wrap-up satisfying, and couldn't help wondering of Lorenz plans a sequel or series; it feels like there's sufficient meat on the bones established here for one more meal at least.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Diviners (Libba Bray) - My Review
Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune) - My Review
Even Though I Knew the End (C. L. Polk) - My Review
Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts
Friday, November 21, 2025
Friday, October 17, 2025
One Way (S. J. Morden)
One Way
The Frank Kittridge series, Book 1
S. J. Morden
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, architect Frank Kittridge was an ordinary man, a husband and a father and a respectable citizen... until he took the law into his own hands and shot the untouchable dealer who hooked his son on drugs. He may have had his vengeance, but it cost him his marriage and his freedom; he's not eligible for parole until well after his natural lifespan. But then he receives a very unusual offer from the tech giant XO. In exchange for helping build the first outpost on Mars, he'll be allowed to live out the remainder of his days on the red planet - still technically a prisoner, but freed from prison on Earth, and a part of truly groundbreaking science. He accepts, as do several other inmates at Panopticon private prisons throughout California. All of them have committed crimes worth extreme sentences, so Frank knows better than to consider any of them friends, but only together can they achieve their goals and survive on a new world. But will Mars truly bring any semblance of freedom, or have Frank and the others only signed their own death warrants?
REVIEW: On the classic sitcom The Golden Girls, there's an episode where the four ladies are attending a "murder mystery" dinner, and the "detective" is presenting the evidence. The hopelessly naïve Rose pipes up with a helpful suggestion: "Maybe that bloody dagger will lead us to the murder weapon." I found myself thinking of that line, of someone who cannot or will not see the damning clues right in front of them for what they are, for a significant portion of the back end of One Way. I should not have been thinking that about a character who, unlike Rose, was not only confronting a real problem in life-or-death circumstances, but was supposed to be focused, a little jaded, and of above-average intelligence.
The story opens with Frank in prison, receiving the unusual offer from XO via a lawyer, before heading to the private training facility deep in the desert where Frank and his companions of circumstance must learn their jobs and figure out how to cooperate despite all of them being criminals. Each chapter opens with internal memos and conversations between XO executives and legal departments, showing the all-too-familiar greed and cruelty and downright sociopathic logic driving the whole project, information deliberately withheld from the test subjects. Even without that knowledge, though, I found it a little hard to believe that Frank wouldn't at least suspect some hinky behavior and motivation behind his "employer", given how brazen modern tech billionaires are about such things today; in Frank's near future, I can't imagine how they'd become any more discreet, especially considering the utter lack of significant consequences for their openness thus far. Those decisions shape the mission and its goals into something other than what the inmates are told... and that's before people start dying on Mars.
From shortly after they're woken from the suspended animation that made the trip through space cost-effective (as they weren't consuming resources on the journey - not that XO doesn't have the tech, but they didn't want to waste a penny more than they had to on mere prisoners), death is a constant companion to their efforts to build a permanent habitat for future missions. It is an inherently hostile and deadly environment, so one or two deaths might be expected, but soon enough questions start arising even in Frank's mind - questions he goes out of his way to dismiss, as, despite his experience on the wrong end of the law and years spent in prison, he seems almost impossibly naive. Not only are more than one of his fellow "Martians" violent offenders, but XO itself is hardly a holy church. Metaphoric bloody daggers are bristling all over the red planet before Frank begins to seriously entertain notions of murder, and even then the culprit is eye-rollingly obvious from early on, for all that Frank draws out the "investigation" overlong (leading to more collateral damage/death) before the final confrontation.
That said, there are some strong points in this book. The author is an actual rocket scientist, and his vision of a Martian outpost is full of technical details that bring the concept to life, as well as descriptions of the stark, alien landscape that's both forbidding and oddly beautiful. His ideas of how a private tech company, driven by profit (and personal megalomania) beyond all other considerations, would approach space colonization is also exceptionally plausible. But at some point I just got too frustrated with Frank's obtuseness in the face of evidence even a barely-educated idiot like myself could see clearly. The ending is suitably intense, though the final parts again have Frank underestimating just who and what he's dealing with in ways that are bound to stab him in the back in the next volume (which I'm not sure I'm interested enough in to pursue).
While I appreciated the hard science behind Morden's story and it had several interesting and exciting parts, the characters and plot itself had me grinding my teeth too much by the end for a solid four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Gunpowder Moon (David Perdreira) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
The Frank Kittridge series, Book 1
S. J. Morden
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, architect Frank Kittridge was an ordinary man, a husband and a father and a respectable citizen... until he took the law into his own hands and shot the untouchable dealer who hooked his son on drugs. He may have had his vengeance, but it cost him his marriage and his freedom; he's not eligible for parole until well after his natural lifespan. But then he receives a very unusual offer from the tech giant XO. In exchange for helping build the first outpost on Mars, he'll be allowed to live out the remainder of his days on the red planet - still technically a prisoner, but freed from prison on Earth, and a part of truly groundbreaking science. He accepts, as do several other inmates at Panopticon private prisons throughout California. All of them have committed crimes worth extreme sentences, so Frank knows better than to consider any of them friends, but only together can they achieve their goals and survive on a new world. But will Mars truly bring any semblance of freedom, or have Frank and the others only signed their own death warrants?
REVIEW: On the classic sitcom The Golden Girls, there's an episode where the four ladies are attending a "murder mystery" dinner, and the "detective" is presenting the evidence. The hopelessly naïve Rose pipes up with a helpful suggestion: "Maybe that bloody dagger will lead us to the murder weapon." I found myself thinking of that line, of someone who cannot or will not see the damning clues right in front of them for what they are, for a significant portion of the back end of One Way. I should not have been thinking that about a character who, unlike Rose, was not only confronting a real problem in life-or-death circumstances, but was supposed to be focused, a little jaded, and of above-average intelligence.
The story opens with Frank in prison, receiving the unusual offer from XO via a lawyer, before heading to the private training facility deep in the desert where Frank and his companions of circumstance must learn their jobs and figure out how to cooperate despite all of them being criminals. Each chapter opens with internal memos and conversations between XO executives and legal departments, showing the all-too-familiar greed and cruelty and downright sociopathic logic driving the whole project, information deliberately withheld from the test subjects. Even without that knowledge, though, I found it a little hard to believe that Frank wouldn't at least suspect some hinky behavior and motivation behind his "employer", given how brazen modern tech billionaires are about such things today; in Frank's near future, I can't imagine how they'd become any more discreet, especially considering the utter lack of significant consequences for their openness thus far. Those decisions shape the mission and its goals into something other than what the inmates are told... and that's before people start dying on Mars.
From shortly after they're woken from the suspended animation that made the trip through space cost-effective (as they weren't consuming resources on the journey - not that XO doesn't have the tech, but they didn't want to waste a penny more than they had to on mere prisoners), death is a constant companion to their efforts to build a permanent habitat for future missions. It is an inherently hostile and deadly environment, so one or two deaths might be expected, but soon enough questions start arising even in Frank's mind - questions he goes out of his way to dismiss, as, despite his experience on the wrong end of the law and years spent in prison, he seems almost impossibly naive. Not only are more than one of his fellow "Martians" violent offenders, but XO itself is hardly a holy church. Metaphoric bloody daggers are bristling all over the red planet before Frank begins to seriously entertain notions of murder, and even then the culprit is eye-rollingly obvious from early on, for all that Frank draws out the "investigation" overlong (leading to more collateral damage/death) before the final confrontation.
That said, there are some strong points in this book. The author is an actual rocket scientist, and his vision of a Martian outpost is full of technical details that bring the concept to life, as well as descriptions of the stark, alien landscape that's both forbidding and oddly beautiful. His ideas of how a private tech company, driven by profit (and personal megalomania) beyond all other considerations, would approach space colonization is also exceptionally plausible. But at some point I just got too frustrated with Frank's obtuseness in the face of evidence even a barely-educated idiot like myself could see clearly. The ending is suitably intense, though the final parts again have Frank underestimating just who and what he's dealing with in ways that are bound to stab him in the back in the next volume (which I'm not sure I'm interested enough in to pursue).
While I appreciated the hard science behind Morden's story and it had several interesting and exciting parts, the characters and plot itself had me grinding my teeth too much by the end for a solid four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Gunpowder Moon (David Perdreira) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
Friday, September 19, 2025
Extinction (Douglas Preston)
Extinction
The Cash and Colcord series, Book 1
Douglas Preston
Forge Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: At Erebus Resort, a private valley in Colorado, wealthy visitors can see resurrected giants from a lost age. Thanks to a team of scientists, cutting-edge technology, and the investment of a billionaire backer, mammoths, glyptodonts, and more roam freely for the first time in thousands of years. Each creation has been carefully gene-edited to lack aggression, making them as safe as any domestic animal to be around.
Until two visitors disappear while on a high-country honeymoon backpacking excursion through the park, leaving behind pools of blood large enough that nobody doubts their fate.
At the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Agent Frances Cash is eager to finally take the lead on a major case. Along with county sheriff James Colcord, she sets out to uncover what happened and if the culprit is animal or human. But it quickly becomes apparent that the Erebus staff knows more than they're letting on, that their cooperation has limits... and that the dead honeymooners are just the start of a far more dangerous spree.
REVIEW: With clear (and acknowledged) influence from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, Extinction explores the pitfalls of de-extincting lost species, particularly the slippery slope when arrogance crossbreeds with scientific breakthroughs and the brakes of ethics are cut by greed (to mix and mangle a metaphor).
Opening with the doomed honeymooners, the story then establishes its heroes, CBI Agent Cash and Sheriff Colcord. Each is initially a little skeptical of the other due to interdepartmental rivalries and the politics of the situation (in addition to some internal personnel friction, Erebus Resort is a political hot potato, a major revenue source for the state and backed by people too powerful to ignore but opposed by numerous very vocal groups, some of which have rather good points), but they share a dedication to the job and a determination to see it through, no matter whose toes get stepped on and how inconvenient the truth might ultimately be. The head of Erebus security, Maximilian, promises full cooperation and appears shocked by the murder, but it's clear early on that the company has more going on than they're revealing, and that their boss ultimately values the survival of the park and continuation of his de-extinction work over the safety of human beings. Meanwhile, the culprits grow bolder and more violent, their attacks more depraved, their ultimate plan expanding in scale, putting everyone in danger. In thriller fashion, events escalate through various action pieces and setbacks to an explosive finale that sets up the next installment (which has yet to be published).
What cost it in the ratings was a sense of needless plot and character sprawl, some people and elements never really justifying their page time by the end, their fates a little too predictable. I guessed early on what was behind the attacks, though some bits of the reveal still worked well. I also expected a little more to come of the mammoths and a few other resurrected creatures, which had brief sense-of-awe moments after a big deal was made of their presence but ultimately might as well have been just advanced animatronics or not even been there at all, which is not something I should be thinking after I was promised a park full of Ice Age creatures; it's a bit like thinking the dinosaurs might as well have not been in Jurassic Park.
Other than those nitpicks, it's a decent enough thriller with sci-fi trappings. I didn't mind the heroes, though I don't know if I need to read any more in the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton) - My Review
The Tusks of Extinction (Ray Nayler) - My Review
Tyrannosaur Canyon (Douglas Preston) - My Review
The Cash and Colcord series, Book 1
Douglas Preston
Forge Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: At Erebus Resort, a private valley in Colorado, wealthy visitors can see resurrected giants from a lost age. Thanks to a team of scientists, cutting-edge technology, and the investment of a billionaire backer, mammoths, glyptodonts, and more roam freely for the first time in thousands of years. Each creation has been carefully gene-edited to lack aggression, making them as safe as any domestic animal to be around.
Until two visitors disappear while on a high-country honeymoon backpacking excursion through the park, leaving behind pools of blood large enough that nobody doubts their fate.
At the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Agent Frances Cash is eager to finally take the lead on a major case. Along with county sheriff James Colcord, she sets out to uncover what happened and if the culprit is animal or human. But it quickly becomes apparent that the Erebus staff knows more than they're letting on, that their cooperation has limits... and that the dead honeymooners are just the start of a far more dangerous spree.
REVIEW: With clear (and acknowledged) influence from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, Extinction explores the pitfalls of de-extincting lost species, particularly the slippery slope when arrogance crossbreeds with scientific breakthroughs and the brakes of ethics are cut by greed (to mix and mangle a metaphor).
Opening with the doomed honeymooners, the story then establishes its heroes, CBI Agent Cash and Sheriff Colcord. Each is initially a little skeptical of the other due to interdepartmental rivalries and the politics of the situation (in addition to some internal personnel friction, Erebus Resort is a political hot potato, a major revenue source for the state and backed by people too powerful to ignore but opposed by numerous very vocal groups, some of which have rather good points), but they share a dedication to the job and a determination to see it through, no matter whose toes get stepped on and how inconvenient the truth might ultimately be. The head of Erebus security, Maximilian, promises full cooperation and appears shocked by the murder, but it's clear early on that the company has more going on than they're revealing, and that their boss ultimately values the survival of the park and continuation of his de-extinction work over the safety of human beings. Meanwhile, the culprits grow bolder and more violent, their attacks more depraved, their ultimate plan expanding in scale, putting everyone in danger. In thriller fashion, events escalate through various action pieces and setbacks to an explosive finale that sets up the next installment (which has yet to be published).
What cost it in the ratings was a sense of needless plot and character sprawl, some people and elements never really justifying their page time by the end, their fates a little too predictable. I guessed early on what was behind the attacks, though some bits of the reveal still worked well. I also expected a little more to come of the mammoths and a few other resurrected creatures, which had brief sense-of-awe moments after a big deal was made of their presence but ultimately might as well have been just advanced animatronics or not even been there at all, which is not something I should be thinking after I was promised a park full of Ice Age creatures; it's a bit like thinking the dinosaurs might as well have not been in Jurassic Park.
Other than those nitpicks, it's a decent enough thriller with sci-fi trappings. I didn't mind the heroes, though I don't know if I need to read any more in the series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton) - My Review
The Tusks of Extinction (Ray Nayler) - My Review
Tyrannosaur Canyon (Douglas Preston) - My Review
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie (Freida McFadden)
The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie: A Satirical Novella
Freida McFadden
Hollywood Upstairs Press
Fiction, Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: She had the perfect marriage - until it was over. It's been weeks since Grant died in a fiery crash, and Alice still can't get his face out of her mind... because she's still seeing him everywhere, quite literally. In the grocery store, following her in traffic, walking down the street - everywhere. Either his ghost is haunting her in a bad plot twist, or something sinister is going on. To figure out what, Alice will have to unravel the secrets, the lies, and the secret lies of their life together, all without revealing her own deceptions, or ending up dead herself.
REVIEW: I've never actually read anything by McFadden before (though, ironically, I saw several of her books go through the library shipping center as I listened to this audiobook), but satires can be fun and the length filled a dead spot in my day. From the title and first words of the prologue, it's pretty clear that McFadden is presenting a satire of her own genre (and even her own works, as Alice is reading a Freida McFadden novel when her best friend comes over with yet another condolence casserole), offering up a trawler's worth of red herrings via an unreliable narrator and false starts and plot twists that may not make a lick of sense but make for catchy chapter break hooks. As Alice struggles to deal with seeing Grant everywhere and second-guessing her own memories, McFadden puts genre tropes through their paces, clearly having a blast while doing it. At one point she even slips in a reference to Spaceballs, which helped boost the short tale over some uneven pacing to a solid Good rating. The plot is a bit flimsy and the characters paper-thin, but it wasn't written to be a gripping, taut thriller. It set out to be a satire, and it made me chuckle, which is all a satire has to do. Anyone looking for more than that needs to lighten up.
You Might Also Enjoy:
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - My Review
Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) - My Review
Lord of the Fly Fest (Goldy Moldavsky) - My Review
Freida McFadden
Hollywood Upstairs Press
Fiction, Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: She had the perfect marriage - until it was over. It's been weeks since Grant died in a fiery crash, and Alice still can't get his face out of her mind... because she's still seeing him everywhere, quite literally. In the grocery store, following her in traffic, walking down the street - everywhere. Either his ghost is haunting her in a bad plot twist, or something sinister is going on. To figure out what, Alice will have to unravel the secrets, the lies, and the secret lies of their life together, all without revealing her own deceptions, or ending up dead herself.
REVIEW: I've never actually read anything by McFadden before (though, ironically, I saw several of her books go through the library shipping center as I listened to this audiobook), but satires can be fun and the length filled a dead spot in my day. From the title and first words of the prologue, it's pretty clear that McFadden is presenting a satire of her own genre (and even her own works, as Alice is reading a Freida McFadden novel when her best friend comes over with yet another condolence casserole), offering up a trawler's worth of red herrings via an unreliable narrator and false starts and plot twists that may not make a lick of sense but make for catchy chapter break hooks. As Alice struggles to deal with seeing Grant everywhere and second-guessing her own memories, McFadden puts genre tropes through their paces, clearly having a blast while doing it. At one point she even slips in a reference to Spaceballs, which helped boost the short tale over some uneven pacing to a solid Good rating. The plot is a bit flimsy and the characters paper-thin, but it wasn't written to be a gripping, taut thriller. It set out to be a satire, and it made me chuckle, which is all a satire has to do. Anyone looking for more than that needs to lighten up.
You Might Also Enjoy:
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - My Review
Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) - My Review
Lord of the Fly Fest (Goldy Moldavsky) - My Review
Friday, July 25, 2025
North of Boston (Elisabeth Elo)
North of Boston
Elisabeth Elo
Pamela Dorman Books
Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: As the adult child of a turbulent marriage, Pirio Kasparov has struggled but built a reasonably decent life for herself in Boston. The perfume company founded by her parents is doing well, and will someday pass to her if her stubborn Russian-born father ever relinquishes his control. Her best friend since boarding school days, Thomasina, isn't doing nearly so well, too frequently found at the bottom of a bottle, but Pirio does what she can to help her and her son Noah. Ned, Thomasina's ex and Noah's father, had just left a large commercial outfit for the freelance life aboard a lobster boat, with Pirio riding along to help bait traps and get him started (not that she has a particular interest in fishing, but she's always on the lookout for something new and interesting to try, and for all his faults Ned has been a great father).
Neither one saw the freighter until it was slicing Ned's small vessel in two.
While Ned was lost, Pirio managed to survive for four hours in the near-freezing waters north of Boston before being rescued. The news treats her as a novelty, while the Navy wants to investigate her unusual ability to endure extreme water temperatures. But Pirio can hardly care about those things, not with Noah's father dead - and not with that little itch in the back of her mind that the "accident" was anything but accidental. Disappointed by official investigations that seem content to brush the matter aside and spurred by her cynical and suspicious father, she starts poking around on her own. Little does she suspect what a hornet's nest her inquiries will kick up...
REVIEW: This debut thriller melds elements of commercial fishing, corruption, perfume making, immigrant diaspora, and the lasting scars of troubled childhoods and abusive relationships, set in a solidly realized Boston and starring an interesting, proactive, and somewhat flawed heroine. It also feels like the start of a series that never took off, and thus one that never got a chance to fully explore its characters or situations, making some parts feel oddly extraneous by the end.
Keeping a fairly good pace throughout, Pirio's incredible survival in frigid Atlantic waters gives her some local notoriety in the middle of a deeply personal tragedy; Ned and her school friend Thomasina may have been over as a couple, but the man always did right by his son Noah, also much beloved by Pirio, and the breakup was not exactly a one-sided matter. That notoriety gets her noticed by the Navy (a subplot that sorta sputters out after verifying something Pirio suspected but needed proof of before believing), and also gives her some "street cred" when she starts investigating the matter of who sank Ned's boat. At first, she thinks it's a tragic accident, maybe a "hit and run" as is not uncommon on a sea with many small vessels sharing space and shipping lanes with behemoths, neither of which can exactly brake on a dime. But when strange occurrences follow her first questions, she realizes that there's more to it than mere happenstance; Ned was targeted, and someone wants very much for the matter to be forgotten. Pirio is reasonably clever in her investigations, if sometimes reckless, though that's in keeping with her character. Along the way, she also has to help with Noah as his mother spirals into self-destruction and cope with her own headstrong father's mortality catching up to his outsized will and personality, one more complication in a relationship that has been nothing but complicated. Memories of her mother, a woman with her own problems but who left an indelible mark on Pirio's life (as well as a legacy of the wondrous complexities of scent; she was the one who started formulating the perfumes that would become the backbone of the family's minor empire), make her fractured family relations all the more bittersweet, though her quest to find justice for Ned helps bring some unexpected closure on that front. Along the way are numerous clues and dangerous characters, some close calls and dead ends, culminating in revelations that have far-reaching implications and put Pirio and her friends in far more danger than she ever intended. There are hints and potentials for romance, but for the most part the book is free of entanglements of the heart; she may feel some attractions, but knows her current quest must take precedence. The conclusion leaves some questions and threads loose in a way that feels intentional, as though Elo was leaving the door open for more stories about Pirio and her companions. Overall, it kept me entertained.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Hemlock Island (Kelley Armstrong) - My Review
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
Whalefall (Daniel Kraus) - My Review
Elisabeth Elo
Pamela Dorman Books
Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: As the adult child of a turbulent marriage, Pirio Kasparov has struggled but built a reasonably decent life for herself in Boston. The perfume company founded by her parents is doing well, and will someday pass to her if her stubborn Russian-born father ever relinquishes his control. Her best friend since boarding school days, Thomasina, isn't doing nearly so well, too frequently found at the bottom of a bottle, but Pirio does what she can to help her and her son Noah. Ned, Thomasina's ex and Noah's father, had just left a large commercial outfit for the freelance life aboard a lobster boat, with Pirio riding along to help bait traps and get him started (not that she has a particular interest in fishing, but she's always on the lookout for something new and interesting to try, and for all his faults Ned has been a great father).
Neither one saw the freighter until it was slicing Ned's small vessel in two.
While Ned was lost, Pirio managed to survive for four hours in the near-freezing waters north of Boston before being rescued. The news treats her as a novelty, while the Navy wants to investigate her unusual ability to endure extreme water temperatures. But Pirio can hardly care about those things, not with Noah's father dead - and not with that little itch in the back of her mind that the "accident" was anything but accidental. Disappointed by official investigations that seem content to brush the matter aside and spurred by her cynical and suspicious father, she starts poking around on her own. Little does she suspect what a hornet's nest her inquiries will kick up...
REVIEW: This debut thriller melds elements of commercial fishing, corruption, perfume making, immigrant diaspora, and the lasting scars of troubled childhoods and abusive relationships, set in a solidly realized Boston and starring an interesting, proactive, and somewhat flawed heroine. It also feels like the start of a series that never took off, and thus one that never got a chance to fully explore its characters or situations, making some parts feel oddly extraneous by the end.
Keeping a fairly good pace throughout, Pirio's incredible survival in frigid Atlantic waters gives her some local notoriety in the middle of a deeply personal tragedy; Ned and her school friend Thomasina may have been over as a couple, but the man always did right by his son Noah, also much beloved by Pirio, and the breakup was not exactly a one-sided matter. That notoriety gets her noticed by the Navy (a subplot that sorta sputters out after verifying something Pirio suspected but needed proof of before believing), and also gives her some "street cred" when she starts investigating the matter of who sank Ned's boat. At first, she thinks it's a tragic accident, maybe a "hit and run" as is not uncommon on a sea with many small vessels sharing space and shipping lanes with behemoths, neither of which can exactly brake on a dime. But when strange occurrences follow her first questions, she realizes that there's more to it than mere happenstance; Ned was targeted, and someone wants very much for the matter to be forgotten. Pirio is reasonably clever in her investigations, if sometimes reckless, though that's in keeping with her character. Along the way, she also has to help with Noah as his mother spirals into self-destruction and cope with her own headstrong father's mortality catching up to his outsized will and personality, one more complication in a relationship that has been nothing but complicated. Memories of her mother, a woman with her own problems but who left an indelible mark on Pirio's life (as well as a legacy of the wondrous complexities of scent; she was the one who started formulating the perfumes that would become the backbone of the family's minor empire), make her fractured family relations all the more bittersweet, though her quest to find justice for Ned helps bring some unexpected closure on that front. Along the way are numerous clues and dangerous characters, some close calls and dead ends, culminating in revelations that have far-reaching implications and put Pirio and her friends in far more danger than she ever intended. There are hints and potentials for romance, but for the most part the book is free of entanglements of the heart; she may feel some attractions, but knows her current quest must take precedence. The conclusion leaves some questions and threads loose in a way that feels intentional, as though Elo was leaving the door open for more stories about Pirio and her companions. Overall, it kept me entertained.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Hemlock Island (Kelley Armstrong) - My Review
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
Whalefall (Daniel Kraus) - My Review
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
This is Our Story (Ashley Elston)
This is Our Story
Ashley Elston
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Five teenage boys, united by wealth, influence, and wild streaks broad as an interstate, were at the private River Point Hunting Club after one of their notoriously raucous parties when they decided to go into the woods in the wee hours to try their luck with the local deer.
Only four returned.
Due to the power embodied in the families of the suspects, the district attorney Mr. Gaines is eager to see the death of Grant written off as an unfortunate hunting accident. There's no way to know which of the boys actually fired the rifle that killed him, as they all admitted to using it for target practice earlier, and there seems to be no solid evidence to go on when the only eyewitnesses are the only suspects, each backing up the stories of the others. Five boys, dark woods, deer... surely, it was all just a terrible mistake. Thus, the case lands on the desk of an aging public defender, Mr. Stone, in the expectation that he'll do little more than give the appearance of considering charges before giving up. But the DA underestimated the old man... and his intern, Kate Marino.
A gifted photographer and member of her school newspaper and media club, Kate dreams of going to school in New York City, and hopes that an internship in a law office - courtesy of her best friend Reagan's family contacts, and helped by her own mother working for Mr. Stone - will make the resume of a small-town girl stand out. But her time there has taught her a certain cynicism about the notion of justice... until young Grant's death and the case of the "River Point Boys" (as the foursome come to be known in local media) land on Mr. Stone's desk. She never told anyone, but she and Grant had met briefly some weeks before his death, and had been texting each other almost nightly - communication that Kate had hoped would spark into something real, until they had a falling-out the night before the tragedy. Now, she has a chance to help see justice be done. But investigating Grant's death is more dangerous than she realizes, unearthing secrets and corruption that spread far behind the bounds of teenage hijinks to infiltrate through her whole town... secrets that have already proven deadly once...
REVIEW: At the start, this looked like a nice, thrilling, potentially twisty tale, unraveling stories and unearthing motives and stopping a killer (or killers) from getting away with cold-blooded murder, a case complicated by friendships and rivalries and class divides; Kate and her friends are firmly on the opposite side of the tracks and town influence as the River Point Boys and their well-connected families, who have their fingers on the scales of justice from the start. Kate's not-quite-illicit, not-quite-romantic (yet) relationship has an air of potential narrator unreliability, adding another wrinkle, in addition to giving the girl extra incentive to step a little beyond her minor role as intern in figuring out whodunit. But it isn't long before Kate's potential as an investigator is undermined by her intellect dropping to single digits partway in, compromised by a growing attraction to one of the suspects, whom she trusts too readily given the circumstances and her earlier skepticism about the River Point Boys. She does increasingly boneheaded things, taking increasingly implausible risks, to the point where I started to wonder just what she'd been doing as an intern in a law office for all these months. Heck, I wondered if she'd ever caught five minutes of any given law show on TV, because the things she ended up doing were so monumentally inept that I can't believe she understood a single, solitary thing about anything. Meanwhile, the story keeps teasing the reader with interludes from the killer's point of view (written in a way to obscure their identity), in what starts as a nice way to raise tension but eventually becomes just tiresome. At some point, despite herself, the motive and culprit are unmasked, but not before Kate's ineptitude jeopardizes literally everything she's spent the entire novel working towards... after which she does even more inane things. I only finished because I didn't feel like swapping audiobooks by the time I lost all faith in Kate's ability to do anything but trip over her own metaphoric feet. The earlier parts worked well enough to barely keep it afloat at the Okay line of three stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
One Of Us Is Lying (Karen M. McManus) - My Review
Five Total Strangers (Natalie D. Richards) - My Review
Ashley Elston
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Five teenage boys, united by wealth, influence, and wild streaks broad as an interstate, were at the private River Point Hunting Club after one of their notoriously raucous parties when they decided to go into the woods in the wee hours to try their luck with the local deer.
Only four returned.
Due to the power embodied in the families of the suspects, the district attorney Mr. Gaines is eager to see the death of Grant written off as an unfortunate hunting accident. There's no way to know which of the boys actually fired the rifle that killed him, as they all admitted to using it for target practice earlier, and there seems to be no solid evidence to go on when the only eyewitnesses are the only suspects, each backing up the stories of the others. Five boys, dark woods, deer... surely, it was all just a terrible mistake. Thus, the case lands on the desk of an aging public defender, Mr. Stone, in the expectation that he'll do little more than give the appearance of considering charges before giving up. But the DA underestimated the old man... and his intern, Kate Marino.
A gifted photographer and member of her school newspaper and media club, Kate dreams of going to school in New York City, and hopes that an internship in a law office - courtesy of her best friend Reagan's family contacts, and helped by her own mother working for Mr. Stone - will make the resume of a small-town girl stand out. But her time there has taught her a certain cynicism about the notion of justice... until young Grant's death and the case of the "River Point Boys" (as the foursome come to be known in local media) land on Mr. Stone's desk. She never told anyone, but she and Grant had met briefly some weeks before his death, and had been texting each other almost nightly - communication that Kate had hoped would spark into something real, until they had a falling-out the night before the tragedy. Now, she has a chance to help see justice be done. But investigating Grant's death is more dangerous than she realizes, unearthing secrets and corruption that spread far behind the bounds of teenage hijinks to infiltrate through her whole town... secrets that have already proven deadly once...
REVIEW: At the start, this looked like a nice, thrilling, potentially twisty tale, unraveling stories and unearthing motives and stopping a killer (or killers) from getting away with cold-blooded murder, a case complicated by friendships and rivalries and class divides; Kate and her friends are firmly on the opposite side of the tracks and town influence as the River Point Boys and their well-connected families, who have their fingers on the scales of justice from the start. Kate's not-quite-illicit, not-quite-romantic (yet) relationship has an air of potential narrator unreliability, adding another wrinkle, in addition to giving the girl extra incentive to step a little beyond her minor role as intern in figuring out whodunit. But it isn't long before Kate's potential as an investigator is undermined by her intellect dropping to single digits partway in, compromised by a growing attraction to one of the suspects, whom she trusts too readily given the circumstances and her earlier skepticism about the River Point Boys. She does increasingly boneheaded things, taking increasingly implausible risks, to the point where I started to wonder just what she'd been doing as an intern in a law office for all these months. Heck, I wondered if she'd ever caught five minutes of any given law show on TV, because the things she ended up doing were so monumentally inept that I can't believe she understood a single, solitary thing about anything. Meanwhile, the story keeps teasing the reader with interludes from the killer's point of view (written in a way to obscure their identity), in what starts as a nice way to raise tension but eventually becomes just tiresome. At some point, despite herself, the motive and culprit are unmasked, but not before Kate's ineptitude jeopardizes literally everything she's spent the entire novel working towards... after which she does even more inane things. I only finished because I didn't feel like swapping audiobooks by the time I lost all faith in Kate's ability to do anything but trip over her own metaphoric feet. The earlier parts worked well enough to barely keep it afloat at the Okay line of three stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
One Of Us Is Lying (Karen M. McManus) - My Review
Five Total Strangers (Natalie D. Richards) - My Review
Thursday, June 19, 2025
Admiral (Sean Danker)
Admiral
The Admiral series, Book 1
Sean Danker
Roc
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: The moment he wakes on the floor of a derelict spacecraft, surrounded by strangers in Evagardian military uniforms, he knows something has gone terribly wrong... especially when he is informed that he was pulled from a malfunctioning sleeper pod that designated him as an admiral. He is nothing of the sort - and what he really is hardly seems to matter anyway. His three rescuers, green cadets every one, don't belong on this vessel any more than he does; they were en route to assignment on the flagship of the empire, and have no idea how they ended up on this run-down old junker of a freighter. Worse, it seems that something has gone terribly wrong: the power is gone, the engines are dead, the gravity feels strange, and nobody answers the comms. The "Admiral" and his companions of circumstance may not trust one another, but they'll have to band together to figure out what happened if they are to have any hope of surviving, let alone escaping.
REVIEW: Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a straightforward story, so this one, from the description, seemed right up that alley: a small isolated crew facing a mysterious threat, the book equivalent of a popcorn space thriller flick in the vein of numerous Alien knock-offs, which even if it can't come close to the inspiration can at least entertain. But this thriller just does not deliver, playing out less like Alien and more like one of those video games where it takes too long to get to the meat of the action and game play becomes repetitious as threats basically recycle and scale up endlessly.
The main character, who never gets a name, wakes to confusion and an imminent threat. It immediately gave me vibes of SyFy's space adventure series Dark Matter (another victim of the channel's infamously overzealous axe before it could conclude its arc, curse them), making me wonder/hope about whether his memories might be similarly compromised... but, no. Everyone else knows who they are, even if they don't know why they're here, and it's the Admiral who, despite narrating the entire story, is playing games with the reader by deliberately omitting his own past and identity. This little dance routine, perpetually teasing but never revealing like an obnoxious kid playing keep-away on the playground, grows tiresome very fast, even when the author tries to distract by throwing everyone into danger from the start. Forced to overcome their mutual distrust for the sake of mutual survival, the four begin exploring, finding few answers but innumerable new problems, with little to no down time to process each development. The near-constant stress and adrenaline rush also grows tiresome, not helped by characters that feel like stock-bin archetypes (including one who, naturally, starts to fall for the theoretically charming and likely dangerous Admiral, because of course). As for the dangers, there's only so much running around on a derelict ship from one crisis to another, then across a desolate alien landscape doing the same, that can occur before reader burnout sets in, particularly when I started growing indifferent at best to the characters whose survival was on the line. None of this was helped by Danker's efforts to shoehorn in galactic history and politics (which was hindered rather than helped by the Admiral's continued smug refusal to let the reader know who the heck he was) around the edges of the endless dangers piling up on the crew's backs. Eventually, the real face of the danger is revealed (not a huge surprise, really), but even that loses its shock value when it becomes just more and more of the same basic threat, eventually inflated to just plain unbelievable degrees. Then it ends in a way that made much of the effort that went into character building feel pointless, though it does finally answer some questions about the Admiral... even if by then I'd long since stopped caring.
In its favor, the story does not drag its feet (even if it's sometimes running itself in circles), and it more or less delivers exactly what it promises, a sci-fi thriller with nonstop action and "mystery" (if in that subset of the genre where the actual nature of said "mystery" is just a thin veneer of the usual Big Scary Threat in the Dark material where specifics don't really matter so long as there's sufficient action involved in evading death). I just never felt engaged by it, not even in a popcorn-flick way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Scourge Between Stars (Ness Brown) - My Review
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Beacon 23 (Hugh Howey) - My Review
The Admiral series, Book 1
Sean Danker
Roc
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: The moment he wakes on the floor of a derelict spacecraft, surrounded by strangers in Evagardian military uniforms, he knows something has gone terribly wrong... especially when he is informed that he was pulled from a malfunctioning sleeper pod that designated him as an admiral. He is nothing of the sort - and what he really is hardly seems to matter anyway. His three rescuers, green cadets every one, don't belong on this vessel any more than he does; they were en route to assignment on the flagship of the empire, and have no idea how they ended up on this run-down old junker of a freighter. Worse, it seems that something has gone terribly wrong: the power is gone, the engines are dead, the gravity feels strange, and nobody answers the comms. The "Admiral" and his companions of circumstance may not trust one another, but they'll have to band together to figure out what happened if they are to have any hope of surviving, let alone escaping.
REVIEW: Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a straightforward story, so this one, from the description, seemed right up that alley: a small isolated crew facing a mysterious threat, the book equivalent of a popcorn space thriller flick in the vein of numerous Alien knock-offs, which even if it can't come close to the inspiration can at least entertain. But this thriller just does not deliver, playing out less like Alien and more like one of those video games where it takes too long to get to the meat of the action and game play becomes repetitious as threats basically recycle and scale up endlessly.
The main character, who never gets a name, wakes to confusion and an imminent threat. It immediately gave me vibes of SyFy's space adventure series Dark Matter (another victim of the channel's infamously overzealous axe before it could conclude its arc, curse them), making me wonder/hope about whether his memories might be similarly compromised... but, no. Everyone else knows who they are, even if they don't know why they're here, and it's the Admiral who, despite narrating the entire story, is playing games with the reader by deliberately omitting his own past and identity. This little dance routine, perpetually teasing but never revealing like an obnoxious kid playing keep-away on the playground, grows tiresome very fast, even when the author tries to distract by throwing everyone into danger from the start. Forced to overcome their mutual distrust for the sake of mutual survival, the four begin exploring, finding few answers but innumerable new problems, with little to no down time to process each development. The near-constant stress and adrenaline rush also grows tiresome, not helped by characters that feel like stock-bin archetypes (including one who, naturally, starts to fall for the theoretically charming and likely dangerous Admiral, because of course). As for the dangers, there's only so much running around on a derelict ship from one crisis to another, then across a desolate alien landscape doing the same, that can occur before reader burnout sets in, particularly when I started growing indifferent at best to the characters whose survival was on the line. None of this was helped by Danker's efforts to shoehorn in galactic history and politics (which was hindered rather than helped by the Admiral's continued smug refusal to let the reader know who the heck he was) around the edges of the endless dangers piling up on the crew's backs. Eventually, the real face of the danger is revealed (not a huge surprise, really), but even that loses its shock value when it becomes just more and more of the same basic threat, eventually inflated to just plain unbelievable degrees. Then it ends in a way that made much of the effort that went into character building feel pointless, though it does finally answer some questions about the Admiral... even if by then I'd long since stopped caring.
In its favor, the story does not drag its feet (even if it's sometimes running itself in circles), and it more or less delivers exactly what it promises, a sci-fi thriller with nonstop action and "mystery" (if in that subset of the genre where the actual nature of said "mystery" is just a thin veneer of the usual Big Scary Threat in the Dark material where specifics don't really matter so long as there's sufficient action involved in evading death). I just never felt engaged by it, not even in a popcorn-flick way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Scourge Between Stars (Ness Brown) - My Review
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Beacon 23 (Hugh Howey) - My Review
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Wanderers (Chuck Wendig)
Wanderers
The Wanderers series, Book 1
Chuck Wendig
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The end of the world started with one teen girl inexplicably walking out of her home, apparently sleepwalking, though her father and sister try everything to wake her up. Then a neighbor joins her... and another... With experts stumped and efforts to stop the walkers ending disastrously - they become highly distressed, and if restrained too long they will literally explode from internal pressures - politicians and conspiracy theorists inevitably weigh in, turning the growing "flock" into a flashpoint that could tip an already fractured America over the edge into violence and anarchy. But worse is on the way, and unless a handful of individuals - a disgraced scientist, a misled pastor, a damaged ex-cop, the sister of the first walker, an over-the-hill rock legend, and more - can keep their heads, not just America but the whole of the human race itself could vanish in a matter of months.
REVIEW: It took me some time to consider what I ultimately thought of this book, an epic apocalyptic tale clearly inspired by recent political occurrences (though predating the COVID pandemic). It has an intriguing premise and some decent characters going through very harrowing, even gruesome events, mildly let down by an ending that didn't quite deliver.
From a prologue that foretells disaster with the discovery of a comet (traditional harbinger of change and disaster, further underlined by the inexplicable death of the discoverer), the tale starts fairly quickly with the farm girl Nessie walking out of her home, pursued by elder sister Shana, who takes a little too long to work out that this isn't just a prank by a spirited young teen but a serious problem. From there, the tale introduces the rest of the core cast in turns, from the former CDC scientist contacted by an agent from a mysterious top-secret AI through the small-town man of the cloth Matthew struggling to reconcile his faith with a disintegrating home life and new pressures to explain the inexplicable and a faded 1980's rock star still clinging to his faded glory days and party persona long past their usefulness. As the walkers grow more numerous and attract more attention and conspiracy theories, a second threat pops up that dovetails neatly with the first to set the stage for a true end-of-the-world scenario... and, inevitably, kick off fresh waves of paranoia, xenophobia, and violence, fueled by opportunistic fringe politicians and supremacist militias. Interludes add glimpses of how the greater world reacts to the unfolding crises as civilization slowly collapses into chaos. The core story moves decently, with a few lulls (and a couple times where characters didn't behave particularly intelligently given the situation and what they knew), pulling off some interesting twists on its way to the final showdown for the fate of the world and future (or lack thereof) of humanity high in the Colorado mountains. Then there is a wrap-up that felt oddly weak and short-changed some characters and a couple storylines (plus a late-stage "twist"), perhaps explained by the fact that there is a sequel.
I wavered on whether to shave a half-star for the ending. Even with a sequel, I felt it could've done a better job sticking that landing with what it had, plus it failed to make me especially interested in continuing, as it seemed more like Wendig ran out of steam rather than the author had a whole second book's worth of material to explore. I ultimately decided to keep the solid fourth star, but only barely. It was, overall, a fairly solid story of an unfolding apocalypse and the horrors, and small glimmers of hope, that come with the end of the world.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Feed (Mira Grant) - My Review
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow (Tad Williams) - My Review
The 5th Wave (Rick Yancey) - My Review
The Wanderers series, Book 1
Chuck Wendig
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The end of the world started with one teen girl inexplicably walking out of her home, apparently sleepwalking, though her father and sister try everything to wake her up. Then a neighbor joins her... and another... With experts stumped and efforts to stop the walkers ending disastrously - they become highly distressed, and if restrained too long they will literally explode from internal pressures - politicians and conspiracy theorists inevitably weigh in, turning the growing "flock" into a flashpoint that could tip an already fractured America over the edge into violence and anarchy. But worse is on the way, and unless a handful of individuals - a disgraced scientist, a misled pastor, a damaged ex-cop, the sister of the first walker, an over-the-hill rock legend, and more - can keep their heads, not just America but the whole of the human race itself could vanish in a matter of months.
REVIEW: It took me some time to consider what I ultimately thought of this book, an epic apocalyptic tale clearly inspired by recent political occurrences (though predating the COVID pandemic). It has an intriguing premise and some decent characters going through very harrowing, even gruesome events, mildly let down by an ending that didn't quite deliver.
From a prologue that foretells disaster with the discovery of a comet (traditional harbinger of change and disaster, further underlined by the inexplicable death of the discoverer), the tale starts fairly quickly with the farm girl Nessie walking out of her home, pursued by elder sister Shana, who takes a little too long to work out that this isn't just a prank by a spirited young teen but a serious problem. From there, the tale introduces the rest of the core cast in turns, from the former CDC scientist contacted by an agent from a mysterious top-secret AI through the small-town man of the cloth Matthew struggling to reconcile his faith with a disintegrating home life and new pressures to explain the inexplicable and a faded 1980's rock star still clinging to his faded glory days and party persona long past their usefulness. As the walkers grow more numerous and attract more attention and conspiracy theories, a second threat pops up that dovetails neatly with the first to set the stage for a true end-of-the-world scenario... and, inevitably, kick off fresh waves of paranoia, xenophobia, and violence, fueled by opportunistic fringe politicians and supremacist militias. Interludes add glimpses of how the greater world reacts to the unfolding crises as civilization slowly collapses into chaos. The core story moves decently, with a few lulls (and a couple times where characters didn't behave particularly intelligently given the situation and what they knew), pulling off some interesting twists on its way to the final showdown for the fate of the world and future (or lack thereof) of humanity high in the Colorado mountains. Then there is a wrap-up that felt oddly weak and short-changed some characters and a couple storylines (plus a late-stage "twist"), perhaps explained by the fact that there is a sequel.
I wavered on whether to shave a half-star for the ending. Even with a sequel, I felt it could've done a better job sticking that landing with what it had, plus it failed to make me especially interested in continuing, as it seemed more like Wendig ran out of steam rather than the author had a whole second book's worth of material to explore. I ultimately decided to keep the solid fourth star, but only barely. It was, overall, a fairly solid story of an unfolding apocalypse and the horrors, and small glimmers of hope, that come with the end of the world.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Feed (Mira Grant) - My Review
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow (Tad Williams) - My Review
The 5th Wave (Rick Yancey) - My Review
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Lord of the Fly Fest (Goldy Moldavsky)
Lord of the Fly Fest
Goldy Moldavsky
Henry Holt and Co.
Fiction, YA Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The hottest ticket of the millennium is Fly Fest, a star-studded week of models and music and nonstop parties on a private tropical island, where even the cheapest accommodations cost two thousand dollars - almost every penny Rafi Francisco has in savings. Unlike the vast majority of attendees, the hardcore fans and influencers and other internet-famous phonies, Rafi is a serious (if small-time) podcaster, and Fly Fest will be her best (and likely only) chance to corner Aussie pop sensation River Stone and ask him the question no interviewer or police detective has ever apparently dared to ask: did he kill his first girlfriend in the outback? Oh, everyone knows the sob story he tells, how she abandoned him on a camping trip and broke his heart (and inspired the songs on his chart-topping debut album), but Rafi's own investigations are enough to tell her that River's story holds less water than a thimble. If she can get him to confess, she can not only bring a killer to justice, but maybe her podcast will finally break into the big time.
She should've known it would all go wrong.
When the boat arrives at the private island, they're greeted by nothing but a half-built dock. There is no stage. The closest thing to the promised villas is a collection of cheap survival tents. The only food is a crate full of cheese sandwich-shaped items that may or may not actually be edible. There isn't even a single Fly Fest staffer on hand to explain what's going on. The only celebrity who showed up is River Stone himself. And, worse, there's no wifi. Rafi is still determined to get her interview and her confession, but the longer everyone is stranded, the worse the situation becomes... especially when she can't be sure whether or not they're stuck on an island with a serial killer.
REVIEW: As the title implies, this is a satiric homage to William Golding's classic Lord of the Flies, only instead of marooned English schoolboys degenerating into violent anarchy in isolation, it's a group even less prepared to confront a survival situation: a gaggle of internet-addicted wealthy elites who wouldn't know how to recognize unfiltered, hashtag-free reality if it cracked them on the skull like a coconut.
Rafi starts out convinced of her own moral superiority even as she can't help but feel inferior; she sees herself as a serious investigator, not a vapid spewer of meaningless fluff and unattainable beauty standards like most everyone else stranded on the island, and her lack of a six-figure bank account makes her more grounded, yet being surrounded by such impossibly perfect and inexplicably popular people - people who almost seem to be another species altogether, inhabiting a world that only tangentially connects to the planet Earth - can't help but remind her, second by second, how small her voice truly is, how little she even belongs at Fly Fest (the planned mega-festival or the actual fiasco both). The only reason she's initially noticed at all is that she's mistaken for a staffer due to an ill-advised decision to wear festival merchandise to the festival itself; that, and she's so nondescript that nobody else can conceive of any other reason such a drab, ordinary person could possibly be in their presence. Various characters offer fun-house-mirror versions of characters from the Golding classic (I'm sure I would've caught more parallels had I read the book more recently than high school), as most of them stubbornly refuse to believe the reality of the situation (and the fact that they've all been duped and abandoned) and instead - as they do in their normal lives - create an entirely fictitious idea of Fly Fest, trying to replicate their Instagram-worthy personas on a deserted island via increasingly hilarious stunts and extremes. Despite her determination to remain aloof from the madness and pursue her own agenda, Rafi finds herself drug deeper and deeper into the delusions, even as she discovers an unexpected connection with the object of her obsession, the maybe-killer pop star River Stone. When an influencer disappears, River is her immediate prime suspect, but her tendency to latch onto conspiracy theory thinking becomes her own form of the insanity that sweeps the rest of the crowd, for all that she's among the few who fights to remain aware of what's really going on and the trouble they're all in. Along the way, she learns just how much she has in common with the people she swore she'd never have anything in common with... and how dangerous a person can become when their worldview come under threat.
With many snicker-out-loud moments, the story presents some clever commentary on our social media obsessions and cultural tendency to elevate ideas of reality over the actual experience of reality itself, and how none of us are as immune as we like to think we are to the trends and mindsets surrounding us. The ending feels like it loses its chain of thought, though it's not quite the disappointingly (and pointlessly) abrupt ending of the original Lord of the Flies, almost costing it its full fourth star. Lord of the Fly Fest might've done better to break more fully from the source material (and indulge in the darker side it teased but never quite committed to). In the end, I found the story fun enough overall to keep the Good rating intact.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beauty Queens (Libba Bray) - My Review
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend (MJ Wassmer) - My Review
Goldy Moldavsky
Henry Holt and Co.
Fiction, YA Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The hottest ticket of the millennium is Fly Fest, a star-studded week of models and music and nonstop parties on a private tropical island, where even the cheapest accommodations cost two thousand dollars - almost every penny Rafi Francisco has in savings. Unlike the vast majority of attendees, the hardcore fans and influencers and other internet-famous phonies, Rafi is a serious (if small-time) podcaster, and Fly Fest will be her best (and likely only) chance to corner Aussie pop sensation River Stone and ask him the question no interviewer or police detective has ever apparently dared to ask: did he kill his first girlfriend in the outback? Oh, everyone knows the sob story he tells, how she abandoned him on a camping trip and broke his heart (and inspired the songs on his chart-topping debut album), but Rafi's own investigations are enough to tell her that River's story holds less water than a thimble. If she can get him to confess, she can not only bring a killer to justice, but maybe her podcast will finally break into the big time.
She should've known it would all go wrong.
When the boat arrives at the private island, they're greeted by nothing but a half-built dock. There is no stage. The closest thing to the promised villas is a collection of cheap survival tents. The only food is a crate full of cheese sandwich-shaped items that may or may not actually be edible. There isn't even a single Fly Fest staffer on hand to explain what's going on. The only celebrity who showed up is River Stone himself. And, worse, there's no wifi. Rafi is still determined to get her interview and her confession, but the longer everyone is stranded, the worse the situation becomes... especially when she can't be sure whether or not they're stuck on an island with a serial killer.
REVIEW: As the title implies, this is a satiric homage to William Golding's classic Lord of the Flies, only instead of marooned English schoolboys degenerating into violent anarchy in isolation, it's a group even less prepared to confront a survival situation: a gaggle of internet-addicted wealthy elites who wouldn't know how to recognize unfiltered, hashtag-free reality if it cracked them on the skull like a coconut.
Rafi starts out convinced of her own moral superiority even as she can't help but feel inferior; she sees herself as a serious investigator, not a vapid spewer of meaningless fluff and unattainable beauty standards like most everyone else stranded on the island, and her lack of a six-figure bank account makes her more grounded, yet being surrounded by such impossibly perfect and inexplicably popular people - people who almost seem to be another species altogether, inhabiting a world that only tangentially connects to the planet Earth - can't help but remind her, second by second, how small her voice truly is, how little she even belongs at Fly Fest (the planned mega-festival or the actual fiasco both). The only reason she's initially noticed at all is that she's mistaken for a staffer due to an ill-advised decision to wear festival merchandise to the festival itself; that, and she's so nondescript that nobody else can conceive of any other reason such a drab, ordinary person could possibly be in their presence. Various characters offer fun-house-mirror versions of characters from the Golding classic (I'm sure I would've caught more parallels had I read the book more recently than high school), as most of them stubbornly refuse to believe the reality of the situation (and the fact that they've all been duped and abandoned) and instead - as they do in their normal lives - create an entirely fictitious idea of Fly Fest, trying to replicate their Instagram-worthy personas on a deserted island via increasingly hilarious stunts and extremes. Despite her determination to remain aloof from the madness and pursue her own agenda, Rafi finds herself drug deeper and deeper into the delusions, even as she discovers an unexpected connection with the object of her obsession, the maybe-killer pop star River Stone. When an influencer disappears, River is her immediate prime suspect, but her tendency to latch onto conspiracy theory thinking becomes her own form of the insanity that sweeps the rest of the crowd, for all that she's among the few who fights to remain aware of what's really going on and the trouble they're all in. Along the way, she learns just how much she has in common with the people she swore she'd never have anything in common with... and how dangerous a person can become when their worldview come under threat.
With many snicker-out-loud moments, the story presents some clever commentary on our social media obsessions and cultural tendency to elevate ideas of reality over the actual experience of reality itself, and how none of us are as immune as we like to think we are to the trends and mindsets surrounding us. The ending feels like it loses its chain of thought, though it's not quite the disappointingly (and pointlessly) abrupt ending of the original Lord of the Flies, almost costing it its full fourth star. Lord of the Fly Fest might've done better to break more fully from the source material (and indulge in the darker side it teased but never quite committed to). In the end, I found the story fun enough overall to keep the Good rating intact.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beauty Queens (Libba Bray) - My Review
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend (MJ Wassmer) - My Review
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Slow Horses (Mike Herron)
Slow Horses
The Slough House series, Book 1
Mike Herron
Soho Crime
Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The agents of MI5 are among the world's best, protecting England from enemies foreign and domestic... but anyone can stumble, fumble, or run afoul of office politics. The ones who aren't bad enough to fire (or are too politically sensitive to let go) end up at Slough House, home of the department's misfits and screw-ups. It's officially said that Slough House offers a chance at reform, but in practice it's the last stop before resignation - and if they don't quit on their own, the "slow horses" are saddled with openly pointless and tedious assignments until they get the hint and leave. The only ones who hang around more than a few months are the ones too oblivious to realize the snub, or the ones too broken to care about anything anymore, even themselves.
River Cartwright was a bright up-and-comer in the agency until a fouled training exercise resulted in real-world problems. Only the fact that his grandfather was a legend in MI5 saved him from being sacked outright, but being reassigned to Slough House under the doughy, washed-up veteran Jackson Lamb isn't much better than a firing, and he knows it. Surrounded by fellow outcasts, River clings grimly to the thin chance of redemption, not willing to let himself believe that his career is over before it properly began. When a London teenager is abducted by an extremist right-wing group and threatened with an online beheading, he and the other Slough House misfits can only seethe at their ineffectiveness... but a series of managerial missteps instead lands the agents right in the middle of a massive departmental mess centered around the kidnapping - and if they can't unravel the tangled threads and figure out what's really going on, they'll be the ones thrown under the bus by a ruthless and desperate deputy-director.
REVIEW: Not subscribing to Apple+, I have not seen the streaming series inspired by this book, but I was intrigued by the concept. It turns out to be a decent spy thriller, if one that sometimes overplays its tension by drawing out reveals and twists (and has a few elements that subtly set my teeth on edge).
Opening with River and the botched training exercise that derails his career (ironically in the London Underground), it introduces Slough House almost as a character itself, a run-down edifice where the hopelessness and misery are baked into the peeling Formica and yellowed paint, full of agents who seem to be going through the motions of existing more out of habit than out of any remaining aspirations about their lives, let alone their dead-ended careers. River struggles to cling to his sense of purpose, even as some part of him recognizes the truth: he's only still drawing a paycheck because his retired grandfather's reputation still carries some weight at the MI5 headquarters in Regent's Park, and he is expected to be a good little agent and resign so none of the top brass have to ruffle feathers by firing an agent of his pedigree. He perseveres in no small part because he knows in his bones that he didn't mess things up on his own; his partner and best friend (or so he thought) fed him bad intel, seemingly sacrificing River to further his own career. Still, he has no idea how he'll clear his name from Slough House, when the head agent Lamb pretty much tells him point-blank that the gruntwork he's doing - sorting through the garbage of a disgraced investigative reporter - is not actually intended to accomplish anything but make him stink, in a literal and metaphoric sense. This being a thriller and not a depressing literary examination of broken lives, however, it goes without saying that the pointless case of shadowing said reporter turns out to be not so pointless after all. And when the teenager Hassan, a British-Pakistani boy, is snatched off the streets and featured in a livestream by the previously-obscure extremist group Sons of Albion, things heat up across the city and especially in Regent's Park. Can River and his fellow "slow horses" sit on the sidelines as they watch the clock tick down to the promised online beheading of an innocent kid? Even the most cynical denizen of Slough House was and still is an MI5 agent, whether they admit it or not, so it goes without saying that they dip their toes into the investigation... and even if they managed to abstain as they're technically supposed to, they find themselves drug in by the schemes of Deputy-Director Diana Taverner, an ambitious woman who wants to make a name for herself and is more than willing to throw a few of her own people - especially ones already tagged as departmental disgraces - to the wolves to do it. Thus begins a complex game of cat and mouse in a story with multiple cats and mice, some characters being both hunter and hunted at once (though they may not always realize which, if either, they are at the time).
For all that things mostly moved well (after a bit of a slow start), there were a few parts that rubbed a bit wrong, such as the way it was presented as inevitable that a woman in power would mess up a major operation, and how another was basically fridged after River found her attractive. Some of the characters of Slough House felt extraneous by the end, and I'm not sure why Herron bothered cluttering the cast with them. A few of the side stories stretched out overlong, becoming padding at more than one point. For all that, it does wrap up reasonably well, though I don't feel invested enough to continue the series (or pony up the cost of yet another streaming service to watch the show).
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Emperor's Edge (Lindsay Buroker) - My Review
The Athena Protocol (Shamim Sarif) - My Review
Phoenix Rising (Cynthia Vespia) - My Review
The Slough House series, Book 1
Mike Herron
Soho Crime
Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The agents of MI5 are among the world's best, protecting England from enemies foreign and domestic... but anyone can stumble, fumble, or run afoul of office politics. The ones who aren't bad enough to fire (or are too politically sensitive to let go) end up at Slough House, home of the department's misfits and screw-ups. It's officially said that Slough House offers a chance at reform, but in practice it's the last stop before resignation - and if they don't quit on their own, the "slow horses" are saddled with openly pointless and tedious assignments until they get the hint and leave. The only ones who hang around more than a few months are the ones too oblivious to realize the snub, or the ones too broken to care about anything anymore, even themselves.
River Cartwright was a bright up-and-comer in the agency until a fouled training exercise resulted in real-world problems. Only the fact that his grandfather was a legend in MI5 saved him from being sacked outright, but being reassigned to Slough House under the doughy, washed-up veteran Jackson Lamb isn't much better than a firing, and he knows it. Surrounded by fellow outcasts, River clings grimly to the thin chance of redemption, not willing to let himself believe that his career is over before it properly began. When a London teenager is abducted by an extremist right-wing group and threatened with an online beheading, he and the other Slough House misfits can only seethe at their ineffectiveness... but a series of managerial missteps instead lands the agents right in the middle of a massive departmental mess centered around the kidnapping - and if they can't unravel the tangled threads and figure out what's really going on, they'll be the ones thrown under the bus by a ruthless and desperate deputy-director.
REVIEW: Not subscribing to Apple+, I have not seen the streaming series inspired by this book, but I was intrigued by the concept. It turns out to be a decent spy thriller, if one that sometimes overplays its tension by drawing out reveals and twists (and has a few elements that subtly set my teeth on edge).
Opening with River and the botched training exercise that derails his career (ironically in the London Underground), it introduces Slough House almost as a character itself, a run-down edifice where the hopelessness and misery are baked into the peeling Formica and yellowed paint, full of agents who seem to be going through the motions of existing more out of habit than out of any remaining aspirations about their lives, let alone their dead-ended careers. River struggles to cling to his sense of purpose, even as some part of him recognizes the truth: he's only still drawing a paycheck because his retired grandfather's reputation still carries some weight at the MI5 headquarters in Regent's Park, and he is expected to be a good little agent and resign so none of the top brass have to ruffle feathers by firing an agent of his pedigree. He perseveres in no small part because he knows in his bones that he didn't mess things up on his own; his partner and best friend (or so he thought) fed him bad intel, seemingly sacrificing River to further his own career. Still, he has no idea how he'll clear his name from Slough House, when the head agent Lamb pretty much tells him point-blank that the gruntwork he's doing - sorting through the garbage of a disgraced investigative reporter - is not actually intended to accomplish anything but make him stink, in a literal and metaphoric sense. This being a thriller and not a depressing literary examination of broken lives, however, it goes without saying that the pointless case of shadowing said reporter turns out to be not so pointless after all. And when the teenager Hassan, a British-Pakistani boy, is snatched off the streets and featured in a livestream by the previously-obscure extremist group Sons of Albion, things heat up across the city and especially in Regent's Park. Can River and his fellow "slow horses" sit on the sidelines as they watch the clock tick down to the promised online beheading of an innocent kid? Even the most cynical denizen of Slough House was and still is an MI5 agent, whether they admit it or not, so it goes without saying that they dip their toes into the investigation... and even if they managed to abstain as they're technically supposed to, they find themselves drug in by the schemes of Deputy-Director Diana Taverner, an ambitious woman who wants to make a name for herself and is more than willing to throw a few of her own people - especially ones already tagged as departmental disgraces - to the wolves to do it. Thus begins a complex game of cat and mouse in a story with multiple cats and mice, some characters being both hunter and hunted at once (though they may not always realize which, if either, they are at the time).
For all that things mostly moved well (after a bit of a slow start), there were a few parts that rubbed a bit wrong, such as the way it was presented as inevitable that a woman in power would mess up a major operation, and how another was basically fridged after River found her attractive. Some of the characters of Slough House felt extraneous by the end, and I'm not sure why Herron bothered cluttering the cast with them. A few of the side stories stretched out overlong, becoming padding at more than one point. For all that, it does wrap up reasonably well, though I don't feel invested enough to continue the series (or pony up the cost of yet another streaming service to watch the show).
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Emperor's Edge (Lindsay Buroker) - My Review
The Athena Protocol (Shamim Sarif) - My Review
Phoenix Rising (Cynthia Vespia) - My Review
Friday, November 15, 2024
Down a Dark Hall (Lois Duncan)
Down a Dark Hall
A Lois Duncan Thrillers book
Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: When she first heard her mother and stepfather talking about the private Blackwood School for Girls in upstate New York, Kit Gordon thought it sounded exciting, especially if her best friend could go with her. But somehow only Kit got past the unusual entrance exams, and when she sets eyes on the restored mansion in the remote woods for the first time, she has only one thought: evil.
At first, she thinks it might just be her nerves. The place is old and spooky and the headmistress Madame Duret is peculiar, to say the least. But she can't shake the feeling that something's not right at Blackwood. There are only four students including her, such an odd mix that Kit can't imagine how they were all selected when her own brilliant best friend was rejected. The teaching staff is just one one professor, the headmistress's young adult son Jules, and Duret herself. Then the nightmares begin... and the students start displaying unusual talents, things they could never do before they arrived.
What is going on? What is Madame Duret doing to the children - and why? And can Kit escape before it's too late?
REVIEW: It's a classic setup by a familiar old-school author... but, like the Blackwood School for Girls, something felt a little odd about this story from the start - such as why an old-school author would bring up cell phones, social media, and the internet in a tale that feels like it's from the mid-twentieth century. Apparently, this is an "updated" version of the original, which was published in 1974. It probably would've been best just to leave it in its original time; it does a disservice to modern young readers to assume they're incapable of comprehending or enjoying what, to them, would be "historical fiction". As it is, the updates come across a little forced, like a parent overusing slang from a younger generation without quite getting the nuance and context right, muddling an otherwise reasonably decent (for its original time) and atmospheric thriller.
Kit doesn't want to be at Blackwood from the beginning, especially not without her best friend; her remarried mother and stepfather, however, are going on an extended European honeymoon and need somewhere for Kit to stay, and Blackwood promised a premium experience they couldn't deny. At first, she thinks maybe that's why she has such a visceral reaction the first time she lays eyes on the school, formerly the home of a local eccentric... but, this being a thriller, her gut instinct is correct, and from the moment she sets foot on the property Kit is in more danger than she can understand. Students and staff are familiar characters one would expect in this kind of tale, from the intimidating headmistress (who is clearly hiding sinister secrets) to the bubble-headed blonde classmate to the swoonworthy young music instructor (and Duret's son) Jules to the kindly cook who provides backstory as needed for the plot and more. Nobody is particularly deep, but nobody really needs to be in this kind of plot. It's more about the slowly unfolding horrors, the nightmares and unusual expressions of spontaneous "gifts" that catch all the children off guard and elicit different reactions from each, as Kit slowly pieces together just why the four students were selected and what Duret intends for them. There are some logic stretches, but overall the tale does a decent job immersing the reader in Kit's hellish experiences as the horrors unfold and her efforts to resist and escape (which she does at least try, to her credit) are thwarted. The climax could've been punchier, the wrap-up quick in a way the left me slightly disappointed, but overall the story delivers the boarding-school-with-a-dark-secret thriller that it promised... though I still question the publisher's insistence on the "updates", especially when the first thing the story does is deprive the children of access to nearly all of the modern technology it itself shoehorned into the story. Why bother introducing the tech at all, anyway?
You Might Also Enjoy:
Killing Mr. Griffin (Lois Duncan) - My Review
Every Heart a Doorway (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Three Quarters Dead (Richard Peck) - My Review
A Lois Duncan Thrillers book
Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: When she first heard her mother and stepfather talking about the private Blackwood School for Girls in upstate New York, Kit Gordon thought it sounded exciting, especially if her best friend could go with her. But somehow only Kit got past the unusual entrance exams, and when she sets eyes on the restored mansion in the remote woods for the first time, she has only one thought: evil.
At first, she thinks it might just be her nerves. The place is old and spooky and the headmistress Madame Duret is peculiar, to say the least. But she can't shake the feeling that something's not right at Blackwood. There are only four students including her, such an odd mix that Kit can't imagine how they were all selected when her own brilliant best friend was rejected. The teaching staff is just one one professor, the headmistress's young adult son Jules, and Duret herself. Then the nightmares begin... and the students start displaying unusual talents, things they could never do before they arrived.
What is going on? What is Madame Duret doing to the children - and why? And can Kit escape before it's too late?
REVIEW: It's a classic setup by a familiar old-school author... but, like the Blackwood School for Girls, something felt a little odd about this story from the start - such as why an old-school author would bring up cell phones, social media, and the internet in a tale that feels like it's from the mid-twentieth century. Apparently, this is an "updated" version of the original, which was published in 1974. It probably would've been best just to leave it in its original time; it does a disservice to modern young readers to assume they're incapable of comprehending or enjoying what, to them, would be "historical fiction". As it is, the updates come across a little forced, like a parent overusing slang from a younger generation without quite getting the nuance and context right, muddling an otherwise reasonably decent (for its original time) and atmospheric thriller.
Kit doesn't want to be at Blackwood from the beginning, especially not without her best friend; her remarried mother and stepfather, however, are going on an extended European honeymoon and need somewhere for Kit to stay, and Blackwood promised a premium experience they couldn't deny. At first, she thinks maybe that's why she has such a visceral reaction the first time she lays eyes on the school, formerly the home of a local eccentric... but, this being a thriller, her gut instinct is correct, and from the moment she sets foot on the property Kit is in more danger than she can understand. Students and staff are familiar characters one would expect in this kind of tale, from the intimidating headmistress (who is clearly hiding sinister secrets) to the bubble-headed blonde classmate to the swoonworthy young music instructor (and Duret's son) Jules to the kindly cook who provides backstory as needed for the plot and more. Nobody is particularly deep, but nobody really needs to be in this kind of plot. It's more about the slowly unfolding horrors, the nightmares and unusual expressions of spontaneous "gifts" that catch all the children off guard and elicit different reactions from each, as Kit slowly pieces together just why the four students were selected and what Duret intends for them. There are some logic stretches, but overall the tale does a decent job immersing the reader in Kit's hellish experiences as the horrors unfold and her efforts to resist and escape (which she does at least try, to her credit) are thwarted. The climax could've been punchier, the wrap-up quick in a way the left me slightly disappointed, but overall the story delivers the boarding-school-with-a-dark-secret thriller that it promised... though I still question the publisher's insistence on the "updates", especially when the first thing the story does is deprive the children of access to nearly all of the modern technology it itself shoehorned into the story. Why bother introducing the tech at all, anyway?
You Might Also Enjoy:
Killing Mr. Griffin (Lois Duncan) - My Review
Every Heart a Doorway (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Three Quarters Dead (Richard Peck) - My Review
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Zero Sum Game (S. L. Huang)
Zero Sum Game
The Cas Russell series, Book 1
S. L. Huang
Tor
Fiction, Action/Humor/Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Some people are good at math. Some are great at it. And then there's Cas Russell, a woman to whom the whole world is a series of numbers and equations in constant flow around her, enabling her to perform seemingly-superhuman feats. Rather than use her gifts to make a killing in business or at a casino, she instead takes freelance jobs finding things that have been lost... even people. Tracking down Courtney, a wayward girl who got sucked into the clutches of a Colombian drug cartel, is just another day on the job to Cas. But something isn't adding up about this job. Why would drug lords and federal agencies alike take such a particular interest in an unnoteworthy, expendable mule? Why is there an ex-cop PI on her tail almost from the moment they escape the cartel compound, babbling nonsense about secret projects and assassinations and mind control? And who has decided the Cas herself is now a sufficient threat that her contacts are getting killed? Cas may not have many (or any) real friends, and her morals may be generously described as charcoal gray, but that just makes her a very, very bad enemy...
REVIEW: With a snarky bad-ass heroine and action straight from the first page, Zero Sum Game starts on a strong note, quickly establishing Cas and her abilities (as well as her not-quite-friend Rio, a psychopath who ironically is the only person she trusts to have her back). It stayed strong through most of its length, until an ending that felt like a betrayal and letdown of most everything that came before.
In the vein of many a mercenary or bounty hunter, Cas is not a white-hat good girl; the book opens after she's already killed numerous people breaking into the drug lords' compound outside of Los Angeles, and it's not long before the body count ticks higher during the escape with Courtney. She is, however, interesting, a compelling character with a nice, quick-witted voice and an intriguing ability as she uses her beyond-prodigal grasp of mathematics to pick her way through firefights without a scratch (using formulae to calculate the location of shooters via echos and vectors, figuring out force and optimal angles of attack in a heartbeat, etc.). If it all stretches credulity a bit, well, it's basically a superhero plot, and math as a superpower is less implausible than mutation from a radioactive spider bite or other gimmicks. It isn't long before Cas realizes just how much more there is to this seemingly-routine rescue mission, but it still takes some convincing before she realizes the truth about the threat: a secret society with an apparent mind reader who can manipulate people with just a single conversation, driving them to spill secrets, betray friends and family, even murder or commit suicide, all thinking it's their own idea. For a woman who has always been self-reliant, who relies on her brain and her calculations, this is a horror beyond anything, the idea that she might not even be able to trust her own memories or thoughts. Despite her lone-wolf instincts and inherently distrustful nature, she finds herself picking up a small handful of new allies (who are familiar tropes, but decently done) even before she admits to herself that this is a threat she cannot compute down to zero without help... and even then, victory may not be a sure formula. Being around other people forces her to see herself as others see her - making her question her utter disregard for humans, her casual willingness to resort to lethal force as though lives were just more numbers to impersonally manipulate - but does not lead to an instant personality shift. She is who she is, for better or worse, but perhaps she could become a slightly more ethical version of herself, especially when confronted with an enemy whose rationale and methodology repel her, but which seem disturbingly familiar.
As mentioned, this is a fast-paced book with few lulls, punctuated by periodic snark. A few of the setbacks seemed avoidable or foreseeable, but overall I was enjoying it... until the ending. Granted, this is just the first book in an apparently trilogy, but the ending felt like it ripped away Cas's agency and invalidated most of what she and her companions sacrificed. It was enough to knock a solid star off the rating, and make me uninterested in future adventures with Cas. Why bother, when the equation just comes to zero in the end?
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind (Jackson Ford) - My Review
Middlegame (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Killing Gravity (Corey J. White) - My Review
The Cas Russell series, Book 1
S. L. Huang
Tor
Fiction, Action/Humor/Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Some people are good at math. Some are great at it. And then there's Cas Russell, a woman to whom the whole world is a series of numbers and equations in constant flow around her, enabling her to perform seemingly-superhuman feats. Rather than use her gifts to make a killing in business or at a casino, she instead takes freelance jobs finding things that have been lost... even people. Tracking down Courtney, a wayward girl who got sucked into the clutches of a Colombian drug cartel, is just another day on the job to Cas. But something isn't adding up about this job. Why would drug lords and federal agencies alike take such a particular interest in an unnoteworthy, expendable mule? Why is there an ex-cop PI on her tail almost from the moment they escape the cartel compound, babbling nonsense about secret projects and assassinations and mind control? And who has decided the Cas herself is now a sufficient threat that her contacts are getting killed? Cas may not have many (or any) real friends, and her morals may be generously described as charcoal gray, but that just makes her a very, very bad enemy...
REVIEW: With a snarky bad-ass heroine and action straight from the first page, Zero Sum Game starts on a strong note, quickly establishing Cas and her abilities (as well as her not-quite-friend Rio, a psychopath who ironically is the only person she trusts to have her back). It stayed strong through most of its length, until an ending that felt like a betrayal and letdown of most everything that came before.
In the vein of many a mercenary or bounty hunter, Cas is not a white-hat good girl; the book opens after she's already killed numerous people breaking into the drug lords' compound outside of Los Angeles, and it's not long before the body count ticks higher during the escape with Courtney. She is, however, interesting, a compelling character with a nice, quick-witted voice and an intriguing ability as she uses her beyond-prodigal grasp of mathematics to pick her way through firefights without a scratch (using formulae to calculate the location of shooters via echos and vectors, figuring out force and optimal angles of attack in a heartbeat, etc.). If it all stretches credulity a bit, well, it's basically a superhero plot, and math as a superpower is less implausible than mutation from a radioactive spider bite or other gimmicks. It isn't long before Cas realizes just how much more there is to this seemingly-routine rescue mission, but it still takes some convincing before she realizes the truth about the threat: a secret society with an apparent mind reader who can manipulate people with just a single conversation, driving them to spill secrets, betray friends and family, even murder or commit suicide, all thinking it's their own idea. For a woman who has always been self-reliant, who relies on her brain and her calculations, this is a horror beyond anything, the idea that she might not even be able to trust her own memories or thoughts. Despite her lone-wolf instincts and inherently distrustful nature, she finds herself picking up a small handful of new allies (who are familiar tropes, but decently done) even before she admits to herself that this is a threat she cannot compute down to zero without help... and even then, victory may not be a sure formula. Being around other people forces her to see herself as others see her - making her question her utter disregard for humans, her casual willingness to resort to lethal force as though lives were just more numbers to impersonally manipulate - but does not lead to an instant personality shift. She is who she is, for better or worse, but perhaps she could become a slightly more ethical version of herself, especially when confronted with an enemy whose rationale and methodology repel her, but which seem disturbingly familiar.
As mentioned, this is a fast-paced book with few lulls, punctuated by periodic snark. A few of the setbacks seemed avoidable or foreseeable, but overall I was enjoying it... until the ending. Granted, this is just the first book in an apparently trilogy, but the ending felt like it ripped away Cas's agency and invalidated most of what she and her companions sacrificed. It was enough to knock a solid star off the rating, and make me uninterested in future adventures with Cas. Why bother, when the equation just comes to zero in the end?
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind (Jackson Ford) - My Review
Middlegame (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Killing Gravity (Corey J. White) - My Review
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Good Girls Don't Die (Christina Henry)
Good Girls Don't Die
Christina Henry
Berkley
Fiction, Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Celia has no memory of her life before she found herself standing in a suburban kitchen, with a young girl (a daughter?) demanding lunch and a husband on his way to work. Nothing about her home, her family, or her job - owner of a small-town family Italian restaurant - rings a bell, either, but whenever she tries too hard to remember, she gets a splitting headache. There's also something very strange about the town and the people, almost like they're reciting lines from a cozy mystery story rather than talking as normal people talk. When she finds the body of an irascible neighbor in the dumpster and the local police consider her a prime suspect, her amnesia becomes the least of her worries...
Allie's twenty-first birthday was supposed to be spent at the beach with her best friends Cam and Madison - until Brad, Cam's controlling boyfriend, invited himself and his friend Steve (also Madison's beau) along and unilaterally changed their destination to a remote cabin deep in the woods. It's just like something out of the slasher movies Allie loves to watch... until strange noises in the middle of the night make the slasher comparison all too real...
Maggie doesn't remember what happened after she fell asleep last night, but she wakes up dressed in a strange, numbered uniform with nine other similarly-disoriented women. A uniformed man informs them that they each have had a loved one abducted - Maggie is shown a brief video of her own terrified daughter as proof - and that, if they fail to complete a maze and series of challenges in time, those loved ones will be executed. Refusal to participate brings swift and lethal repercussions. She always used to think she'd be a solid survivor in the young adult dystopian tales she reads, but soon learn that words on a page are a far cry from living the nightmare...
Three women, three impossible situations, three story genres seemingly sprung to life around them - and, unbeknownst to any of them, one common enemy who means to see none of them walk away.
REVIEW: I've previous read and quite enjoyed another story by Christina Henry (The Girl in Red, an apocalypse-tinged riff on "Little Red Riding Hood"), and was looking for a seasonally appropriate read, so when this popped up on Libby I figured it was worth a shot. While the premise is interesting, it all gets drug down in the ratings by an ending that lingers too long and hammers home its point too hard, long past effectiveness.
Starting with Celia, the book tells each woman's story as their ordinary lives quickly dissolve into scenarios straight from a horror movie. The situations and protagonists are different enough to avoid straight-up repetition, though it's clear early on that there are similarities throughout. Even as they realize how things don't quite add up, a slow accumulation of details and discrepancies that seem more like staging than reality, they have no choice but to live through the terrible things happening to and around them even as they try to put the bigger puzzle pieces together. While none of them turn out to be the superstar heroines of their favored genres they imagined they'd become, they all find ways to step up to the plate and match wits with their apparent captors. Hints of what's really going on come from between-chapter snippets of online chat rooms and conversations between genre fans, conversations that are intruded upon by toxic trolls and take ugly turns.
On their own, the three tales almost work like a themed short story collection. Maybe Good Girls Don't Die would've been better served by being just that, leaving more mystery over how they each ended up in their surreal, borderline preternaturally nightmarish situations. But, skirting spoiler territory, what happens after they figure out the gist of what's going on and the three threads come together becomes an overlong slog, reducing their common enemy/enemies to caricature levels that sell short the central themes of misogyny and toxic masculinity turning the lives of girls and women into everyday horror tales, too often turning us against each other. (I would've thought the baddies were too over-the-top, but recent current events and political campaigns unfortunately show how many people apparently embrace that level of extreme, violent contempt for anyone without a particular set of genitalia.) Given what they had to go through to get to that point in the story, the things they had to do and who they had to become, that final bit should not have taken nearly so long to drag out to the conclusion. As a reader, I more than got Henry's point long, long before the book ended.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beauty Queens (Libba Bray) - My Review
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Comfort Me With Apples (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Christina Henry
Berkley
Fiction, Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Celia has no memory of her life before she found herself standing in a suburban kitchen, with a young girl (a daughter?) demanding lunch and a husband on his way to work. Nothing about her home, her family, or her job - owner of a small-town family Italian restaurant - rings a bell, either, but whenever she tries too hard to remember, she gets a splitting headache. There's also something very strange about the town and the people, almost like they're reciting lines from a cozy mystery story rather than talking as normal people talk. When she finds the body of an irascible neighbor in the dumpster and the local police consider her a prime suspect, her amnesia becomes the least of her worries...
Allie's twenty-first birthday was supposed to be spent at the beach with her best friends Cam and Madison - until Brad, Cam's controlling boyfriend, invited himself and his friend Steve (also Madison's beau) along and unilaterally changed their destination to a remote cabin deep in the woods. It's just like something out of the slasher movies Allie loves to watch... until strange noises in the middle of the night make the slasher comparison all too real...
Maggie doesn't remember what happened after she fell asleep last night, but she wakes up dressed in a strange, numbered uniform with nine other similarly-disoriented women. A uniformed man informs them that they each have had a loved one abducted - Maggie is shown a brief video of her own terrified daughter as proof - and that, if they fail to complete a maze and series of challenges in time, those loved ones will be executed. Refusal to participate brings swift and lethal repercussions. She always used to think she'd be a solid survivor in the young adult dystopian tales she reads, but soon learn that words on a page are a far cry from living the nightmare...
Three women, three impossible situations, three story genres seemingly sprung to life around them - and, unbeknownst to any of them, one common enemy who means to see none of them walk away.
REVIEW: I've previous read and quite enjoyed another story by Christina Henry (The Girl in Red, an apocalypse-tinged riff on "Little Red Riding Hood"), and was looking for a seasonally appropriate read, so when this popped up on Libby I figured it was worth a shot. While the premise is interesting, it all gets drug down in the ratings by an ending that lingers too long and hammers home its point too hard, long past effectiveness.
Starting with Celia, the book tells each woman's story as their ordinary lives quickly dissolve into scenarios straight from a horror movie. The situations and protagonists are different enough to avoid straight-up repetition, though it's clear early on that there are similarities throughout. Even as they realize how things don't quite add up, a slow accumulation of details and discrepancies that seem more like staging than reality, they have no choice but to live through the terrible things happening to and around them even as they try to put the bigger puzzle pieces together. While none of them turn out to be the superstar heroines of their favored genres they imagined they'd become, they all find ways to step up to the plate and match wits with their apparent captors. Hints of what's really going on come from between-chapter snippets of online chat rooms and conversations between genre fans, conversations that are intruded upon by toxic trolls and take ugly turns.
On their own, the three tales almost work like a themed short story collection. Maybe Good Girls Don't Die would've been better served by being just that, leaving more mystery over how they each ended up in their surreal, borderline preternaturally nightmarish situations. But, skirting spoiler territory, what happens after they figure out the gist of what's going on and the three threads come together becomes an overlong slog, reducing their common enemy/enemies to caricature levels that sell short the central themes of misogyny and toxic masculinity turning the lives of girls and women into everyday horror tales, too often turning us against each other. (I would've thought the baddies were too over-the-top, but recent current events and political campaigns unfortunately show how many people apparently embrace that level of extreme, violent contempt for anyone without a particular set of genitalia.) Given what they had to go through to get to that point in the story, the things they had to do and who they had to become, that final bit should not have taken nearly so long to drag out to the conclusion. As a reader, I more than got Henry's point long, long before the book ended.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Beauty Queens (Libba Bray) - My Review
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Comfort Me With Apples (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Hemlock Island (Kelly Armstrong)
Hemlock Island
Kelly Armstrong
St. Martin's Press
Fiction, Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: After her whirlwind marriage to a tech mogul ended during the pandemic, Laney Kilpatrick managed to remain friends with her ex, Kip. He even gave her the little private island in Lake Superior where they'd built their dream vacation home... an island inauspiciously named after a stand of poisonous hemlock. Unfortunately, Laney's modest salary as a teacher and the minimal income from her debut novel aren't nearly enough to afford the place, especially after her sister passed away and left her the guardian of teenager Madison, so she's been forced to offer Hemlock Island as a summer rental. Lately, though, strange goings-on have been spooking the clients: strange occult symbols, wind chimes of bones and feathers, escalating now to bloodstains and claw marks in a closet, as though something - or someone - had been trying to scratch their way out. After the latest renters abandon the place, Laney decides she needs to investigate things herself... and Madison isn't about to be left behind, not even for a night. Her ex-husband has also been alerted, as well as their mutual high school friends Jayla and Sadie - the latter of whom brings along her police detective brother Garrett. These are not the people she'd choose to bring with her, for various reasons, but there's no turning them away.
As soon as they set foot on Hemlock Island, it's clear that this is not just the work of some pranksters or yet more unruly renters. Something far more sinister is afoot, every discovery more chilling than the last. When the boat is destroyed, Laney and the rest find themselves stranded - and they are not alone. The very isolation that once drew Laney to Hemlock Island, too far from the mainland for telephones or cell signals, now turns it into the perfect trap, made all the worse as long-buried feelings and secrets between the friends are unearthed. Will any of them survive long enough to escape?
REVIEW: A group of fractured friends and lovers, an isolated location, a deadly threat, and no way out... Hemlock Island has all the standard thriller ingredients and uses them competently, delivering a serviceable, if not especially standout, tale.
Starting with a phone call from upset renters about the latest unusual incident on the island, the story kicks off with minimal dithering, assembling its cast and suggesting a storied history binding them as they head to Hemlock Island. They all have their reasons for joining Laney, some a little flimsier than others, that come out as they find themselves in over their heads on what seemed at first to be simple acts of vandalism. It goes without saying that, no, this isn't just some bored teens playing pranks or spoiled renters finding yet another way to wreck the property, but something much more dangerous... something that soon racks up a body count. Laney wavers between being an independent, proactive woman and a hesitant, even overcautious person too prone to giving others the benefit of the doubt even in exceptionally dire and dangerous situations. Much of her life has been bent to accommodate the wills and apparent wishes of those around her. Hemlock Island was a dream come true for her when she and Kip first went there, and it's the one thing that she's clung to just for her own sake; it and her niece Madison are the two things she will fight for with every fiber of her being, even against the evils she finds waiting for her. The other characters generally slot into familiar roles: the sassy, brassy best friend Jayla who believes in Laney more than Laney believes in herself, the "friend" Sadie who is more of a manipulator than an actual confidant (and who may or may not have her own agenda for including herself in the trip), the brash and hopelessly biased (not to mention poor at his apparent job) "detective" Garrett whose history is all too predictable within five minutes of meeting him, the supportive ex Kip who still will do anything for Laney, and the teen girl Madison who refuses to be coddled or protected by grown-ups who still see her as a child. The external tension of being stalked by a sadistic killer - human or supernatural - leads to old wounds being reopened, driving wedges between them when their only hope of survival is banding together.
Even with the familiar parts, Armstrong creates a solid sense of isolation and eeriness on Hemlock Island, each revelation and discovery upping the creepiness (and the gore; this is not a bloodless jump-scare story). There are times when Laney's tendency to lock up under stress gets a bit frustrating, and other times where she skirts the border of being another woman whose sole strength and motivation boils down to mothering. The nature of the threat occasionally feels a bit more nebulous than threatening, and the gore could be over the top and even numbing, losing some effectiveness after the umpteenth graphic description of a mutilated corpse. It came very close to losing a half-star, but managed to hang on by delivering pretty much exactly what it promised.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Those Across the River (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
The Shining (Stephen King) - My Review
The Hollow Places (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
Kelly Armstrong
St. Martin's Press
Fiction, Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: After her whirlwind marriage to a tech mogul ended during the pandemic, Laney Kilpatrick managed to remain friends with her ex, Kip. He even gave her the little private island in Lake Superior where they'd built their dream vacation home... an island inauspiciously named after a stand of poisonous hemlock. Unfortunately, Laney's modest salary as a teacher and the minimal income from her debut novel aren't nearly enough to afford the place, especially after her sister passed away and left her the guardian of teenager Madison, so she's been forced to offer Hemlock Island as a summer rental. Lately, though, strange goings-on have been spooking the clients: strange occult symbols, wind chimes of bones and feathers, escalating now to bloodstains and claw marks in a closet, as though something - or someone - had been trying to scratch their way out. After the latest renters abandon the place, Laney decides she needs to investigate things herself... and Madison isn't about to be left behind, not even for a night. Her ex-husband has also been alerted, as well as their mutual high school friends Jayla and Sadie - the latter of whom brings along her police detective brother Garrett. These are not the people she'd choose to bring with her, for various reasons, but there's no turning them away.
As soon as they set foot on Hemlock Island, it's clear that this is not just the work of some pranksters or yet more unruly renters. Something far more sinister is afoot, every discovery more chilling than the last. When the boat is destroyed, Laney and the rest find themselves stranded - and they are not alone. The very isolation that once drew Laney to Hemlock Island, too far from the mainland for telephones or cell signals, now turns it into the perfect trap, made all the worse as long-buried feelings and secrets between the friends are unearthed. Will any of them survive long enough to escape?
REVIEW: A group of fractured friends and lovers, an isolated location, a deadly threat, and no way out... Hemlock Island has all the standard thriller ingredients and uses them competently, delivering a serviceable, if not especially standout, tale.
Starting with a phone call from upset renters about the latest unusual incident on the island, the story kicks off with minimal dithering, assembling its cast and suggesting a storied history binding them as they head to Hemlock Island. They all have their reasons for joining Laney, some a little flimsier than others, that come out as they find themselves in over their heads on what seemed at first to be simple acts of vandalism. It goes without saying that, no, this isn't just some bored teens playing pranks or spoiled renters finding yet another way to wreck the property, but something much more dangerous... something that soon racks up a body count. Laney wavers between being an independent, proactive woman and a hesitant, even overcautious person too prone to giving others the benefit of the doubt even in exceptionally dire and dangerous situations. Much of her life has been bent to accommodate the wills and apparent wishes of those around her. Hemlock Island was a dream come true for her when she and Kip first went there, and it's the one thing that she's clung to just for her own sake; it and her niece Madison are the two things she will fight for with every fiber of her being, even against the evils she finds waiting for her. The other characters generally slot into familiar roles: the sassy, brassy best friend Jayla who believes in Laney more than Laney believes in herself, the "friend" Sadie who is more of a manipulator than an actual confidant (and who may or may not have her own agenda for including herself in the trip), the brash and hopelessly biased (not to mention poor at his apparent job) "detective" Garrett whose history is all too predictable within five minutes of meeting him, the supportive ex Kip who still will do anything for Laney, and the teen girl Madison who refuses to be coddled or protected by grown-ups who still see her as a child. The external tension of being stalked by a sadistic killer - human or supernatural - leads to old wounds being reopened, driving wedges between them when their only hope of survival is banding together.
Even with the familiar parts, Armstrong creates a solid sense of isolation and eeriness on Hemlock Island, each revelation and discovery upping the creepiness (and the gore; this is not a bloodless jump-scare story). There are times when Laney's tendency to lock up under stress gets a bit frustrating, and other times where she skirts the border of being another woman whose sole strength and motivation boils down to mothering. The nature of the threat occasionally feels a bit more nebulous than threatening, and the gore could be over the top and even numbing, losing some effectiveness after the umpteenth graphic description of a mutilated corpse. It came very close to losing a half-star, but managed to hang on by delivering pretty much exactly what it promised.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Those Across the River (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
The Shining (Stephen King) - My Review
The Hollow Places (T. Kingfisher) - My Review
Friday, October 4, 2024
One of Us Is Lying (Karen M. McManus)
One of Us Is Lying
The One of Us Is Lying series, Book 1
Karen M. McManus
Delacorte Press
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Bronwyn's been college bound since elementary school, with top grades and top ambitions. Cooper is living his father's dream on the baseball diamond, with interest from colleges and the major leagues even before high school graduation. Addy, homecoming queen, is the envy of half the school as she dates the star quarterback. Nate has a criminal record for drug dealing, but it's the only way to keep the bills paid with his father drowning in a bottle all day and night. Simon runs a gossip app, About That, spreading hurtful rumors that always turn out to be true. All five wind up in Mr. Avery's room for detention on Monday for bringing their cell phones to class... and all of them know for a fact that the phones they were busted with weren't even theirs. Mr. Avery doesn't care; he's just there to make sure they serve their sentence and learn their lesson.
Then Simon drops dead in the middle of the room... and the police suspect foul play.
The four survivors had little in common before the incident. Now, they're all considered suspects. And, thanks to Simon's gossip app and a particularly damning post that was due to be posted on Tuesday, all four of them have sufficient motive. As the police dig deeper and the media catches wind of the story, each of the four suspects wonder which of the others is guilty, or if they're all being framed.
Everyone has secrets in Bayview. Who had secrets worth killing for?
REVIEW: Built on a tried and true formula of mismatched students forced to see each others as people rather than stereotypes (in the vein of The Breakfast Club) with a murder mystery and potentially unreliable narrators, One of Us Is Lying presents a solid mystery with thriller overtones.
From the start, it's clear that each of the four narrators - the viewpoint shifts in each chapter, rotating through the students - has secrets even beyond what Simon spread in his app. None of them like the rumor-monger, yet nobody can deny that, however he gets his information, it always proves out in the end. His app goes far beyond locker room gossip, revealing secrets that crush people and end futures before they begin, and even though he only identifies people by their initials, it's easy for anyone at Bayview High to figure out who is who. Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate all have their own reasons for loathing Simon; even if they haven't been targeted directly (yet), they all know people who have been destroyed by his app, such as the girl who attempted suicide after a particularly brutal campaign of harassment. Still, none expected to be seriously considered as suspects in his death. When the police get that bit in their teeth, there's no shaking them, especially when goaded by national press coverage... not even when the investigation turns out to be at least as damaging and harmful as Simon's app, unearthing all manner of skeletons from everyone's closets. Worse, someone seems to have taken up Simon's torch to make sure the entire student body, and the world, knows about every one of those old bones as they're brought to light. Could it be the killer, or one of Simon's unknown informants avenging his death?
During the course of the investigation, each of the targeted teens finds their lives turned upside down. Friends they thought they could rely on disappear. Futures they took for granted disintegrate before their eyes. None of them know whom they can trust, and not even their own families can be relied on to support them; Nate in particular lacks any sort of home safety net, but even Bronwyn's affluent parents seem more interested in preserving their idealized image of their child (and their own reputations) than listening. They each are forced to re-examine assumptions on which they've built their worlds and the people they've surrounded themselves with. Naturally, they end up drawing closer to each other... but is one of them actually a killer, or covering for a killer? They all ultimately have something to contribute to the mystery's resolution, each of them stepping up in ways they'd never anticipated they'd be capable of before the accusations and the upending of everything they believed about themselves and their peers. It all makes for an interesting, fast-paced ride with characters whose actions and emotions always rang true.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
Killing Mr. Griffin (Lois Duncan) - My Review
Don't Even Think About It (Sarah Mlynowski) - My Review
The One of Us Is Lying series, Book 1
Karen M. McManus
Delacorte Press
Fiction, YA Mystery/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Bronwyn's been college bound since elementary school, with top grades and top ambitions. Cooper is living his father's dream on the baseball diamond, with interest from colleges and the major leagues even before high school graduation. Addy, homecoming queen, is the envy of half the school as she dates the star quarterback. Nate has a criminal record for drug dealing, but it's the only way to keep the bills paid with his father drowning in a bottle all day and night. Simon runs a gossip app, About That, spreading hurtful rumors that always turn out to be true. All five wind up in Mr. Avery's room for detention on Monday for bringing their cell phones to class... and all of them know for a fact that the phones they were busted with weren't even theirs. Mr. Avery doesn't care; he's just there to make sure they serve their sentence and learn their lesson.
Then Simon drops dead in the middle of the room... and the police suspect foul play.
The four survivors had little in common before the incident. Now, they're all considered suspects. And, thanks to Simon's gossip app and a particularly damning post that was due to be posted on Tuesday, all four of them have sufficient motive. As the police dig deeper and the media catches wind of the story, each of the four suspects wonder which of the others is guilty, or if they're all being framed.
Everyone has secrets in Bayview. Who had secrets worth killing for?
REVIEW: Built on a tried and true formula of mismatched students forced to see each others as people rather than stereotypes (in the vein of The Breakfast Club) with a murder mystery and potentially unreliable narrators, One of Us Is Lying presents a solid mystery with thriller overtones.
From the start, it's clear that each of the four narrators - the viewpoint shifts in each chapter, rotating through the students - has secrets even beyond what Simon spread in his app. None of them like the rumor-monger, yet nobody can deny that, however he gets his information, it always proves out in the end. His app goes far beyond locker room gossip, revealing secrets that crush people and end futures before they begin, and even though he only identifies people by their initials, it's easy for anyone at Bayview High to figure out who is who. Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate all have their own reasons for loathing Simon; even if they haven't been targeted directly (yet), they all know people who have been destroyed by his app, such as the girl who attempted suicide after a particularly brutal campaign of harassment. Still, none expected to be seriously considered as suspects in his death. When the police get that bit in their teeth, there's no shaking them, especially when goaded by national press coverage... not even when the investigation turns out to be at least as damaging and harmful as Simon's app, unearthing all manner of skeletons from everyone's closets. Worse, someone seems to have taken up Simon's torch to make sure the entire student body, and the world, knows about every one of those old bones as they're brought to light. Could it be the killer, or one of Simon's unknown informants avenging his death?
During the course of the investigation, each of the targeted teens finds their lives turned upside down. Friends they thought they could rely on disappear. Futures they took for granted disintegrate before their eyes. None of them know whom they can trust, and not even their own families can be relied on to support them; Nate in particular lacks any sort of home safety net, but even Bronwyn's affluent parents seem more interested in preserving their idealized image of their child (and their own reputations) than listening. They each are forced to re-examine assumptions on which they've built their worlds and the people they've surrounded themselves with. Naturally, they end up drawing closer to each other... but is one of them actually a killer, or covering for a killer? They all ultimately have something to contribute to the mystery's resolution, each of them stepping up in ways they'd never anticipated they'd be capable of before the accusations and the upending of everything they believed about themselves and their peers. It all makes for an interesting, fast-paced ride with characters whose actions and emotions always rang true.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
Killing Mr. Griffin (Lois Duncan) - My Review
Don't Even Think About It (Sarah Mlynowski) - My Review
Friday, July 5, 2024
The Survivors of the Chancellor (Jules Verne)
The Survivors of the Chancellor: Diary of J. R. Kazallon, Passenger
Jules Verne
Tantor Audio
Fiction, Adventure/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: In late September of 1869, Mr. Kazallon sought passage from South Carolina across the Atlantic to Liverpool - and, on a whim, decided to forego the newer steam liners in favor of an older sailing ship. He had a favorable impression of the vessel Chancellor in the harbor, and though Captain Huntly might not have been the most inspiring leader, First Mate Curtis seemed more than capable. Thus, on the 27th, Kazallon and seven other passengers, as well as a crew of twenty, set forth to cross the ocean.
They would not see land again for over seventy days... and some would never see land at all.
From the start, a dark star seems to hang over the voyage when Huntly inexplicably steers the Chancellor south, toward the Caribbean, rather than northeast toward England. From there, troubles compound through fire, storm, mutiny, and worse, until Kazallon's whim in the harbor seems more like a curse, or even a death wish.
REVIEW: It's been a bit since I tried a classic, and I do try to vary my reading diet (audiobooks count as reading), so I figured I'd try this title. Jules Verne is known more for his classic titles that are considered foundational science fiction, but this has little of the fantastical about it, being a straight-up, if harrowing, tale of a disaster at sea.
It starts a trifle slow (not unusual for its era) as the narrator Kazallon describes the ship and names his fellow passengers and some of the more notable crewmen. From the start, it forebodes trouble with his less than favorable impression of Captain Huntly, a man who seems listless or perhaps on the verge of some mental collapse; his decision to sail a ship bound for England south from South Carolina is but the first in a string of questionable decisions, though First Mate Curtis refuses to step in unless the vessel is actually endangered by the captain. At first, it seems like Huntly's unusual navigational choices aren't enough to do lasting harm, or might actually be part of some real agenda by the man; they're almost to a port in the Caribbean when the first disaster - a fire in the cotton bales that form the bulk of the cargo - flares up, quickly followed by a storm, and things only get worse from there. Throughout the disasters, Kazallon records the events and how the various people - crew and passenger alike - either rise to the occasion or sink into their own despair. The pacing is, as mentioned, of its era, and between bursts of high drama and action things slow down somewhat as everyone is forced to deal with the aftermath and brace for whatever is to come next... and there is indeed always something else coming next, either from the world at large or from fractures forming among themselves.
For all that things move reasonably well, Verne's prose bringing to life in fine detail the terror and the misery of the ill-fated voyage, it can't help being of its era. There are a total of two women on board, a wealthy oil magnate's wife and a young attendant, who embody the too-common ways women in older fiction are so often reduced to caricatures or icons - the petty, spoiled and shrewish "demon" versus the young and comely and endlessly faithful and patient "angel" - rather than actual people, to the point where I wonder if Verne or other authors actually conversed much with those beyond their own gender or saw them as some vaguely related other species whose ways and minds were unknowable. A few other unfortunate stereotypes permeate the cast, too. Toward the end, Verne seems to be mostly twisting the knife as the situation becomes more and more dire among the dwindling number of survivors, and a few elements had a touch of illogic or plot convenience about them (which I won't venture into because they might constitute spoilers). I also found the very ending and wrap-up a touch rushed, all negatives enough to shave a half-point off the rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
Lifeboat 12 (Susan Hood) - My Review
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne) - My Review
Jules Verne
Tantor Audio
Fiction, Adventure/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: In late September of 1869, Mr. Kazallon sought passage from South Carolina across the Atlantic to Liverpool - and, on a whim, decided to forego the newer steam liners in favor of an older sailing ship. He had a favorable impression of the vessel Chancellor in the harbor, and though Captain Huntly might not have been the most inspiring leader, First Mate Curtis seemed more than capable. Thus, on the 27th, Kazallon and seven other passengers, as well as a crew of twenty, set forth to cross the ocean.
They would not see land again for over seventy days... and some would never see land at all.
From the start, a dark star seems to hang over the voyage when Huntly inexplicably steers the Chancellor south, toward the Caribbean, rather than northeast toward England. From there, troubles compound through fire, storm, mutiny, and worse, until Kazallon's whim in the harbor seems more like a curse, or even a death wish.
REVIEW: It's been a bit since I tried a classic, and I do try to vary my reading diet (audiobooks count as reading), so I figured I'd try this title. Jules Verne is known more for his classic titles that are considered foundational science fiction, but this has little of the fantastical about it, being a straight-up, if harrowing, tale of a disaster at sea.
It starts a trifle slow (not unusual for its era) as the narrator Kazallon describes the ship and names his fellow passengers and some of the more notable crewmen. From the start, it forebodes trouble with his less than favorable impression of Captain Huntly, a man who seems listless or perhaps on the verge of some mental collapse; his decision to sail a ship bound for England south from South Carolina is but the first in a string of questionable decisions, though First Mate Curtis refuses to step in unless the vessel is actually endangered by the captain. At first, it seems like Huntly's unusual navigational choices aren't enough to do lasting harm, or might actually be part of some real agenda by the man; they're almost to a port in the Caribbean when the first disaster - a fire in the cotton bales that form the bulk of the cargo - flares up, quickly followed by a storm, and things only get worse from there. Throughout the disasters, Kazallon records the events and how the various people - crew and passenger alike - either rise to the occasion or sink into their own despair. The pacing is, as mentioned, of its era, and between bursts of high drama and action things slow down somewhat as everyone is forced to deal with the aftermath and brace for whatever is to come next... and there is indeed always something else coming next, either from the world at large or from fractures forming among themselves.
For all that things move reasonably well, Verne's prose bringing to life in fine detail the terror and the misery of the ill-fated voyage, it can't help being of its era. There are a total of two women on board, a wealthy oil magnate's wife and a young attendant, who embody the too-common ways women in older fiction are so often reduced to caricatures or icons - the petty, spoiled and shrewish "demon" versus the young and comely and endlessly faithful and patient "angel" - rather than actual people, to the point where I wonder if Verne or other authors actually conversed much with those beyond their own gender or saw them as some vaguely related other species whose ways and minds were unknowable. A few other unfortunate stereotypes permeate the cast, too. Toward the end, Verne seems to be mostly twisting the knife as the situation becomes more and more dire among the dwindling number of survivors, and a few elements had a touch of illogic or plot convenience about them (which I won't venture into because they might constitute spoilers). I also found the very ending and wrap-up a touch rushed, all negatives enough to shave a half-point off the rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
Lifeboat 12 (Susan Hood) - My Review
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne) - My Review
Friday, May 17, 2024
The Game of Sunken Places (M. T. Anderson)
The Game of Sunken Places
The Norumbegan Quartet, Book 1
M. T. Anderson
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy/Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Wisecracking Gregory and reserved Brian are polar opposites; perhaps that's what makes them best friends. So when Gregory gets a mysterious invitation to spend an October week in the remote Vermont estate of his Uncle Max (who isn't really even his uncle, just the guardian of his older cousin Penelope after her parents died) and is told to bring a friend, Brian is his first and only choice. But even though he knew Max was a trifle eccentric, Gregory had no idea just how strange the man was - or how strange the visit would turn out to be. Max not only seems vague on what century it is, but insists that the boys dress like schoolchildren from a bygone era, down to the knickerbockers and starched collars. Accommodations include a play room full of old dolls and stuffed toys and a board game with no pieces and no instructions and a picture of a sprawling old house almost exactly like Max's estate. The more they explore, the more the boys realize the truth: they themselves are the game pieces, the estate and surrounding woods are the game board, and the stakes are literal life and death.
REVIEW: I know I just reviewed another M. T. Anderson book last week, but work has been light and his books slot in nicely to fill a shorter shift (especially on a Friday). In any event, The Game of Sunken Places ventures into deeper, darker territory than his Pals in Peril tales, placing a toe or two over the horror/thriller line (though suitable for middle-grade audiences), while still having a strong streak of adventure and imagination, with shades of Jumanji (and possibly a touch of Zork around the edges, though maybe that's just me showing my age; more than once, when the boys were warned about exploring dark places, I mentally filled in the old Infocom text adventure threat about being eaten by a grue).
After setting the stage with a prologue featuring an unlucky real estate developer who stumbles into the dark secrets of the Vermont woods, the story gets off to a quick start with the gilded invitation and the journey to Max's estate, complete with a lurking stranger and an old man in town who warns them to flee while they still can. Things only get weirder when Max turns up - in a horse and buggy, no less - and informs them of the house rule about modern dress (namely, it's forbidden). Brian is the first to clue in that something very unusual is afoot, as the game board starts filling itself in; the encounter with the actual troll on a bridge just confirms what he already knows. It takes Gregory a bit longer, but he gets on board soon enough. Along the way, a deeper, longer history is unearthed, reaching into old-school faerie lore (the kind where the fae are amoral and inscrutable beings to whom short-lived mortals are playthings at best; the "other" beings are never named fae as such, but there's a strong Seelie and Unseelie vibe to them, or at least light and dark elf) and a forgotten civilization, while a mysterious figure keeps dogging the boys' footsteps with ominous warnings to give up before it's too late. Along the way, they both grow up a little, facing riddles and challenges and enough genuine chills and danger to knock any lingering "it's just a game" jocularity out of even Gregory. There are a few unexpectedly emotional turns and revelations, and an ending that promises more adventures ahead; once one has crossed paths with the fae, after all, one's life can never be the same. Toward the end I thought it started stretching a bit, drawing out chases and tension just a touch too long, and something about the conclusion sat a little crooked for me (not counting the "book one of a quartet" loose threads). For the most part, though, I rather enjoyed this, and will likely follow through on at least one more installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dragon Magic (Andre Norton) - My Review
Full Tilt (Neal Shusterman) - My Review
The Glass Town Game (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
The Norumbegan Quartet, Book 1
M. T. Anderson
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy/Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Wisecracking Gregory and reserved Brian are polar opposites; perhaps that's what makes them best friends. So when Gregory gets a mysterious invitation to spend an October week in the remote Vermont estate of his Uncle Max (who isn't really even his uncle, just the guardian of his older cousin Penelope after her parents died) and is told to bring a friend, Brian is his first and only choice. But even though he knew Max was a trifle eccentric, Gregory had no idea just how strange the man was - or how strange the visit would turn out to be. Max not only seems vague on what century it is, but insists that the boys dress like schoolchildren from a bygone era, down to the knickerbockers and starched collars. Accommodations include a play room full of old dolls and stuffed toys and a board game with no pieces and no instructions and a picture of a sprawling old house almost exactly like Max's estate. The more they explore, the more the boys realize the truth: they themselves are the game pieces, the estate and surrounding woods are the game board, and the stakes are literal life and death.
REVIEW: I know I just reviewed another M. T. Anderson book last week, but work has been light and his books slot in nicely to fill a shorter shift (especially on a Friday). In any event, The Game of Sunken Places ventures into deeper, darker territory than his Pals in Peril tales, placing a toe or two over the horror/thriller line (though suitable for middle-grade audiences), while still having a strong streak of adventure and imagination, with shades of Jumanji (and possibly a touch of Zork around the edges, though maybe that's just me showing my age; more than once, when the boys were warned about exploring dark places, I mentally filled in the old Infocom text adventure threat about being eaten by a grue).
After setting the stage with a prologue featuring an unlucky real estate developer who stumbles into the dark secrets of the Vermont woods, the story gets off to a quick start with the gilded invitation and the journey to Max's estate, complete with a lurking stranger and an old man in town who warns them to flee while they still can. Things only get weirder when Max turns up - in a horse and buggy, no less - and informs them of the house rule about modern dress (namely, it's forbidden). Brian is the first to clue in that something very unusual is afoot, as the game board starts filling itself in; the encounter with the actual troll on a bridge just confirms what he already knows. It takes Gregory a bit longer, but he gets on board soon enough. Along the way, a deeper, longer history is unearthed, reaching into old-school faerie lore (the kind where the fae are amoral and inscrutable beings to whom short-lived mortals are playthings at best; the "other" beings are never named fae as such, but there's a strong Seelie and Unseelie vibe to them, or at least light and dark elf) and a forgotten civilization, while a mysterious figure keeps dogging the boys' footsteps with ominous warnings to give up before it's too late. Along the way, they both grow up a little, facing riddles and challenges and enough genuine chills and danger to knock any lingering "it's just a game" jocularity out of even Gregory. There are a few unexpectedly emotional turns and revelations, and an ending that promises more adventures ahead; once one has crossed paths with the fae, after all, one's life can never be the same. Toward the end I thought it started stretching a bit, drawing out chases and tension just a touch too long, and something about the conclusion sat a little crooked for me (not counting the "book one of a quartet" loose threads). For the most part, though, I rather enjoyed this, and will likely follow through on at least one more installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dragon Magic (Andre Norton) - My Review
Full Tilt (Neal Shusterman) - My Review
The Glass Town Game (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Whalefall (Daniel Kraus)
Whalefall
Daniel Kraus
Atria Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Seventeen-year-old Jim Gardiner grew up in the shadow of professional scuba diver Mitt Gardiner, a man whose rage, expectations, and disappointment smothered the boy and drove him to run away from home at fifteen... which is why Jim wasn't there when Mitt, after a terminal cancer diagnosis, dropped himself into the waters off California's deadly Monastery Beach with diving weights in his pockets and no air. The suicide and bodyless funeral left Jim full of churning emotions and unresolved anger, a cloud that he can't seem to escape from, not helped by how his mother and sisters (and the rest of California's diving community) now see him: the coward, the failure, the kid too selfish to even visit his locally-famous father in the hospital.
Now, Jim stands on the shores of Monastery Beach, in diving gear for the first time in two years, about to brave the waters where his father died. If he can recover the bones, give his family something tangible to bury and mourn, maybe he can redeem himself in their eyes (and his own), prove that he isn't the waste of oxygen that Mitt so often made him feel like he was. But the ocean is a tricky place, even moreso to a rusty diver with a preoccupied mind. A series of mistakes and accidents, one too many boundaries pushed, and he finds himself drug into the first stomach of a massive sperm whale - and haunted by the ghostly voice of his father, who may be a hallucination or may be his only guide to survival.
REVIEW: I've heard a fair bit of buzz about this one, and the concept looked unique, so when it popped up as available via Libby I decided it was worth a listen. Unfortunately, despite the admittedly-unique concept and some very visceral imagery, the story turns into a plodding, overlong gaze into the abyss of one self-absorbed boy's navel.
Jim starts (and for quite some time remains) a young man scarred by a father who never really wanted to be a father, particularly to a boy like Jim, a sensitive kid prone to crying and who just can't seem to grasp Mitt's worldview or care about the wisdom he clumsily tries to pass on. Mitt could rarely hold onto a job for long, too outspoken and generally poor at people skills, growing increasingly reckless as life in the suburbs ground against his inherent free spirit, throwback nature. One starts to wonder why he married at all, and whether he realized he had daughters, too; there is no indication that he made any effort to pass on his homespun diving wisdom and experience to either of them (or to his wife), just that only a boy was worthy of inheriting his true passion... and that Jim, by not also being a hotheaded throwback acting out his anger at random intervals, was one disappointment too many. For Jim's part, he spent his childhood alternately coddled by his mother and yelled at by his father, the moments of true father-son bonding few and far between and only getting fewer and further between as he reached adolescence. Still, Mom and his sisters are too oblivious in their femininity to see how Mitt is traipsing right up to the emotional abuse border and stepping over it more than once, taking out his frustrations at being trapped in a life he comes to resent on the boy (if not consciously), and thus can't possibly comprehend it when the last straw finally breaks him and Jim runs away from home to a friend's house; they keep trying to drag Jim back into the home that crushed him. Soft, motherly women never will comprehend Real Men (TM), is the unsubtle message here. It takes some time, and being literally trapped in the belly of a whale (hands up, anyone surprised by how this story takes a turn into the religious and spiritual weeds at the earliest opportunity), for Jim to reflect and realize he wasn't entirely blameless for the rift in the relationship, at least when he was older and had a little more autonomy. Through flashbacks, the horrible pressures that Mitt's mercurial moods and overbearing personality subjected Jim to are revealed, the forces that shaped and twisted the boy into the angry, confused young man who plunges into Monastery Beach without a diving partner or much of a plan, save a driving need to seek Mitt's remains and, with them, a sense of closure that eludes him.
As mentioned earlier, the story itself is plodding, full of sensory details and technical diving terminology while turning almost everything into some sort of reflection or metaphor of Jim's inner confusion and directionless rage. It takes some time to actually get to the whale, though the horror of that incident, and the time spent trapped in the whale, almost become numbing at some point; even in a life-or-death situation, Jim just won't listen and often does the stupidest thing... though the ghost-voice of Mitt could also spit things out a little more clearly, given the dire circumstances. From there, things degenerate into lessons on spirituality, the nature of life and death and birth and rebirth, the meaning of the universe in a speck of dust, and so on and so forth, often repeated in various forms to make sure the reader Gets It and sees the Profound Meaning the author is driving at with the subtlety of a charging sperm whale. The climax drags out to excruciating lengths (seriously, if you have trigger issues about claustrophobia or bodily injury and mutilation, this is not the story for you), and the conclusion is in no hurry to conclude. It darned near lost another half-star by then. That said, there are moments of profundity and glimmers of beauty and wonder now and again. It's clear the author has a deep love for the ocean and diving and the wonders beneath the waves. It was just far too slow, too gory, and too steeped in heavy-handed spirituality for me to really enjoy it.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Adventurer's Son (Roman Dial) - My Review
Into the Drowning Deep (Mira Grant) - My Review
We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep (Andrew Kelly Stewart) - My Review
Daniel Kraus
Atria Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Seventeen-year-old Jim Gardiner grew up in the shadow of professional scuba diver Mitt Gardiner, a man whose rage, expectations, and disappointment smothered the boy and drove him to run away from home at fifteen... which is why Jim wasn't there when Mitt, after a terminal cancer diagnosis, dropped himself into the waters off California's deadly Monastery Beach with diving weights in his pockets and no air. The suicide and bodyless funeral left Jim full of churning emotions and unresolved anger, a cloud that he can't seem to escape from, not helped by how his mother and sisters (and the rest of California's diving community) now see him: the coward, the failure, the kid too selfish to even visit his locally-famous father in the hospital.
Now, Jim stands on the shores of Monastery Beach, in diving gear for the first time in two years, about to brave the waters where his father died. If he can recover the bones, give his family something tangible to bury and mourn, maybe he can redeem himself in their eyes (and his own), prove that he isn't the waste of oxygen that Mitt so often made him feel like he was. But the ocean is a tricky place, even moreso to a rusty diver with a preoccupied mind. A series of mistakes and accidents, one too many boundaries pushed, and he finds himself drug into the first stomach of a massive sperm whale - and haunted by the ghostly voice of his father, who may be a hallucination or may be his only guide to survival.
REVIEW: I've heard a fair bit of buzz about this one, and the concept looked unique, so when it popped up as available via Libby I decided it was worth a listen. Unfortunately, despite the admittedly-unique concept and some very visceral imagery, the story turns into a plodding, overlong gaze into the abyss of one self-absorbed boy's navel.
Jim starts (and for quite some time remains) a young man scarred by a father who never really wanted to be a father, particularly to a boy like Jim, a sensitive kid prone to crying and who just can't seem to grasp Mitt's worldview or care about the wisdom he clumsily tries to pass on. Mitt could rarely hold onto a job for long, too outspoken and generally poor at people skills, growing increasingly reckless as life in the suburbs ground against his inherent free spirit, throwback nature. One starts to wonder why he married at all, and whether he realized he had daughters, too; there is no indication that he made any effort to pass on his homespun diving wisdom and experience to either of them (or to his wife), just that only a boy was worthy of inheriting his true passion... and that Jim, by not also being a hotheaded throwback acting out his anger at random intervals, was one disappointment too many. For Jim's part, he spent his childhood alternately coddled by his mother and yelled at by his father, the moments of true father-son bonding few and far between and only getting fewer and further between as he reached adolescence. Still, Mom and his sisters are too oblivious in their femininity to see how Mitt is traipsing right up to the emotional abuse border and stepping over it more than once, taking out his frustrations at being trapped in a life he comes to resent on the boy (if not consciously), and thus can't possibly comprehend it when the last straw finally breaks him and Jim runs away from home to a friend's house; they keep trying to drag Jim back into the home that crushed him. Soft, motherly women never will comprehend Real Men (TM), is the unsubtle message here. It takes some time, and being literally trapped in the belly of a whale (hands up, anyone surprised by how this story takes a turn into the religious and spiritual weeds at the earliest opportunity), for Jim to reflect and realize he wasn't entirely blameless for the rift in the relationship, at least when he was older and had a little more autonomy. Through flashbacks, the horrible pressures that Mitt's mercurial moods and overbearing personality subjected Jim to are revealed, the forces that shaped and twisted the boy into the angry, confused young man who plunges into Monastery Beach without a diving partner or much of a plan, save a driving need to seek Mitt's remains and, with them, a sense of closure that eludes him.
As mentioned earlier, the story itself is plodding, full of sensory details and technical diving terminology while turning almost everything into some sort of reflection or metaphor of Jim's inner confusion and directionless rage. It takes some time to actually get to the whale, though the horror of that incident, and the time spent trapped in the whale, almost become numbing at some point; even in a life-or-death situation, Jim just won't listen and often does the stupidest thing... though the ghost-voice of Mitt could also spit things out a little more clearly, given the dire circumstances. From there, things degenerate into lessons on spirituality, the nature of life and death and birth and rebirth, the meaning of the universe in a speck of dust, and so on and so forth, often repeated in various forms to make sure the reader Gets It and sees the Profound Meaning the author is driving at with the subtlety of a charging sperm whale. The climax drags out to excruciating lengths (seriously, if you have trigger issues about claustrophobia or bodily injury and mutilation, this is not the story for you), and the conclusion is in no hurry to conclude. It darned near lost another half-star by then. That said, there are moments of profundity and glimmers of beauty and wonder now and again. It's clear the author has a deep love for the ocean and diving and the wonders beneath the waves. It was just far too slow, too gory, and too steeped in heavy-handed spirituality for me to really enjoy it.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Adventurer's Son (Roman Dial) - My Review
Into the Drowning Deep (Mira Grant) - My Review
We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep (Andrew Kelly Stewart) - My Review
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Titanium Noir (Nick Harkaway)
Titanium Noir
Nick Harkaway
Knopf
Fiction, Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Cal Sounder is a private detective specializing in incidents involving the Titans: medically-enhanced elites who can potentially live forever. They are the richest of the rich, the most powerful of the powerful, literally larger than life thanks to the growth effects of the drugs involved, and their crimes are as outsized as their lifestyles... so when one of them turns up dead under very suspicious circumstances, the case could blow the roof off the city.
Roddy Tebbit was atypical even for a Titan, a modest techie working as a professor and pursuing private research into lake algae. Who would want an inoffensive milquetoast of a man like that dead? The more Cal investigates, the more doesn't make sense, leading him down a long and twisted path into deadly secrets long buried by the most powerful Titan on the planet.
REVIEW: A jaded investigator of gray morality, an untouchable elite, a criminal underworld at least as powerful as the ostensible government... Titanium Noir isn't the first science fiction story to transplant the guts of a noir thriller into a dystopian future, but it does so with confidence and a nice conceit in the Titan treatments and its consequences, creating what is essentially another species with godlike aspirations.
Though an ordinary human, Cal has a unique position in the city as a liaison between the Titans and the normal population: his girlfriend Athena is the daughter of the most powerful Titan in the city (and arguably the world), who wound up turning Titan herself after a horrific accident... a transformation that has inevitably driven a wedge between the pair. To become a Titan is to outgrow one's old self (literally; each life-extending, rejuvenating dose causes fresh growth, so they physically tower over the populace and even their voices can cause physical harm), and many become increasingly divorced from their humanity and from the consequences of their own actions. Even as Cal resents the Titans who essentially rule in the way oligarchs do - not with official titles or offices but through money and power and holding the keys to fame, fortune, and immortality - he has fallen into the role as their defender and protector on some level. This is a fence he will not be able to straddle indefinitely; Athena beckons from the Titan side, while his vestigial conscious and outsized awareness of how inhuman they become, how even love seems to fade among them after a few decades or pesky human lifetimes, pull him toward humanity. The case of Roddy's murder plunges Cal deeper into Titan secrets and deceptions than even he could imagine, making him few new friends and many new enemies. In noir fashion, Cal finds corruption behind nearly every doorway in a case that inevitably zigs just when he anticipates a zag. Around him, the future city he inhabits is revealed, a world with some progress but also mired in the past, in no small part due to the essential-immortals pulling civilization's strings; if they can't change, why should the world?
It lost a half-star for an ending that felt a bit rushed (and a conclusion that left a slight aftertaste I didn't quite like... one that I'm sure was intentional, but it being intentional didn't keep me from not quite enjoying it). Overall, though, it's a decent blend of genres with an interesting examination of how immortality and elitism create a subspecies almost literally divorced from the main body of the human race.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Kiln People (David Brin) - My Review
The Body Scout (Lincoln Michel) - My Review
Altered Carbon (Richard K. Morgan) - My Review
Nick Harkaway
Knopf
Fiction, Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Cal Sounder is a private detective specializing in incidents involving the Titans: medically-enhanced elites who can potentially live forever. They are the richest of the rich, the most powerful of the powerful, literally larger than life thanks to the growth effects of the drugs involved, and their crimes are as outsized as their lifestyles... so when one of them turns up dead under very suspicious circumstances, the case could blow the roof off the city.
Roddy Tebbit was atypical even for a Titan, a modest techie working as a professor and pursuing private research into lake algae. Who would want an inoffensive milquetoast of a man like that dead? The more Cal investigates, the more doesn't make sense, leading him down a long and twisted path into deadly secrets long buried by the most powerful Titan on the planet.
REVIEW: A jaded investigator of gray morality, an untouchable elite, a criminal underworld at least as powerful as the ostensible government... Titanium Noir isn't the first science fiction story to transplant the guts of a noir thriller into a dystopian future, but it does so with confidence and a nice conceit in the Titan treatments and its consequences, creating what is essentially another species with godlike aspirations.
Though an ordinary human, Cal has a unique position in the city as a liaison between the Titans and the normal population: his girlfriend Athena is the daughter of the most powerful Titan in the city (and arguably the world), who wound up turning Titan herself after a horrific accident... a transformation that has inevitably driven a wedge between the pair. To become a Titan is to outgrow one's old self (literally; each life-extending, rejuvenating dose causes fresh growth, so they physically tower over the populace and even their voices can cause physical harm), and many become increasingly divorced from their humanity and from the consequences of their own actions. Even as Cal resents the Titans who essentially rule in the way oligarchs do - not with official titles or offices but through money and power and holding the keys to fame, fortune, and immortality - he has fallen into the role as their defender and protector on some level. This is a fence he will not be able to straddle indefinitely; Athena beckons from the Titan side, while his vestigial conscious and outsized awareness of how inhuman they become, how even love seems to fade among them after a few decades or pesky human lifetimes, pull him toward humanity. The case of Roddy's murder plunges Cal deeper into Titan secrets and deceptions than even he could imagine, making him few new friends and many new enemies. In noir fashion, Cal finds corruption behind nearly every doorway in a case that inevitably zigs just when he anticipates a zag. Around him, the future city he inhabits is revealed, a world with some progress but also mired in the past, in no small part due to the essential-immortals pulling civilization's strings; if they can't change, why should the world?
It lost a half-star for an ending that felt a bit rushed (and a conclusion that left a slight aftertaste I didn't quite like... one that I'm sure was intentional, but it being intentional didn't keep me from not quite enjoying it). Overall, though, it's a decent blend of genres with an interesting examination of how immortality and elitism create a subspecies almost literally divorced from the main body of the human race.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Kiln People (David Brin) - My Review
The Body Scout (Lincoln Michel) - My Review
Altered Carbon (Richard K. Morgan) - My Review
Friday, February 23, 2024
How to Survive Your Murder (Danielle Valentine)
How to Survive Your Murder
Danielle Valentine
Razorbill
Fiction, YA Thriller
*+ (Terrible/Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Halloween night, partying teens, a corn maze in Omaha... if anyone recognizes the ingredients to a horror movie, it's Alice Lawrence. The high school junior is obsessed with slasher films, and she and her two best friends are even contemplating starting a podcast about survival lessons one can learn from the "final girl" survivors of Hollywood killers. That's why she doesn't follow her older sister Claire into the maze. But Alice never expected to see her own sister stabbed in front of her eyes among the cornstalks.
One year later, at the trial, a strange woman turns up, implying that maybe Alice didn't see what she thought she saw... that maybe the man on trial is not the real culprit. Alice has been hearing this throughout the hellish year since the worst night of her life, a year in which everything - her dreams of college, her family, even her seemingly-unbreakable friendships - all went to Hell. She knows what she saw, and who she saw. But when Alice hits her head in the courthouse bathroom, she wakes up on that terrible Halloween night - and, this time, she's in the corn maze with her sister. This time, the murder doesn't happen... but another girl dies.
Alice has until midnight to unravel the mystery of what really happened in that corn maze. If she succeeds, she may save the life of her sister, but if she fails, she goes back to the future where Claire is dead and her life isn't worth living. With a murderer stalking the streets of Omaha, she'll have to use every trick she learned from her favorite movies to stay alive - but movies aren't reality, and being the final girl may take more than Alice can muster.
REVIEW: This book wants to be a self-aware thriller in the vein of the Scream franchise (and numerous others), where a teen girl thinks she knows how to survive a horror movie situation only to discover that what looks easy when you're shouting at a character on a screen - Don't put down the knife! Don't go into the basement! Don't split up! Just run, already! - is much more difficult when it's you stumbling over bodies and stalked by a killer or facing the realization that the monster may wear a very familiar face. It really, wants to be that. But either this is an exceptionally meta take on that concept, or Alice really is too ridiculously stupid to be a final girl. I lost track of how many times she stood there, frozen, because fear flooded through her/locked her legs/killed her voice/fill in the descriptor to explain why she doesn't actually do anything useful, or anything at all. She also is a remarkably inept investigator (if what she does counts remotely as an "investigation"), not really thinking through any of the wild conclusions she leaps upon almost at random. I kept thinking of the opening sequence to the parody Scary Movie (the only remotely amusing part of that film, in my opinion), where the girl kept being presented with choices and always took the wrong one: finding a table full of weapons such as a gun and a grenade, she confidently grabs a banana, and when she flees and comes to a fork with signs pointing to Freedom and Certain Death, she hardly pauses before racing to the latter... only this wasn't a parody or an opening sequence, it was the whole of the book, as Alice repeatedly grabs bananas and keeps tripping on her way down the wrong path. The plot helpfully leads her around by her nose, a nose that's often practically pushed into solutions time and again that Alice refuses to see (in addition to freezing up at almost any stressor, she also adopts the winning survival tactic of closing her eyes, because anyone in a survival situation knows that what you don't see can't hurt you). The real culprit's obvious by the halfway point, and most of the distractions and jump-scares feel manipulative and telegraphed even to someone who doesn't watch a ton of slasher movies. There are numerous things that just plain don't make sense by the end, as well as a few last-minute twists that I won't get into for spoiler reasons but which dropped it to the rating it received.
(As a closing note, I still maintain that Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th was a much funnier horror parody than Scary Movie, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - My Review
13 Minutes (Sarah Pinborough) - My Review
Danielle Valentine
Razorbill
Fiction, YA Thriller
*+ (Terrible/Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Halloween night, partying teens, a corn maze in Omaha... if anyone recognizes the ingredients to a horror movie, it's Alice Lawrence. The high school junior is obsessed with slasher films, and she and her two best friends are even contemplating starting a podcast about survival lessons one can learn from the "final girl" survivors of Hollywood killers. That's why she doesn't follow her older sister Claire into the maze. But Alice never expected to see her own sister stabbed in front of her eyes among the cornstalks.
One year later, at the trial, a strange woman turns up, implying that maybe Alice didn't see what she thought she saw... that maybe the man on trial is not the real culprit. Alice has been hearing this throughout the hellish year since the worst night of her life, a year in which everything - her dreams of college, her family, even her seemingly-unbreakable friendships - all went to Hell. She knows what she saw, and who she saw. But when Alice hits her head in the courthouse bathroom, she wakes up on that terrible Halloween night - and, this time, she's in the corn maze with her sister. This time, the murder doesn't happen... but another girl dies.
Alice has until midnight to unravel the mystery of what really happened in that corn maze. If she succeeds, she may save the life of her sister, but if she fails, she goes back to the future where Claire is dead and her life isn't worth living. With a murderer stalking the streets of Omaha, she'll have to use every trick she learned from her favorite movies to stay alive - but movies aren't reality, and being the final girl may take more than Alice can muster.
REVIEW: This book wants to be a self-aware thriller in the vein of the Scream franchise (and numerous others), where a teen girl thinks she knows how to survive a horror movie situation only to discover that what looks easy when you're shouting at a character on a screen - Don't put down the knife! Don't go into the basement! Don't split up! Just run, already! - is much more difficult when it's you stumbling over bodies and stalked by a killer or facing the realization that the monster may wear a very familiar face. It really, wants to be that. But either this is an exceptionally meta take on that concept, or Alice really is too ridiculously stupid to be a final girl. I lost track of how many times she stood there, frozen, because fear flooded through her/locked her legs/killed her voice/fill in the descriptor to explain why she doesn't actually do anything useful, or anything at all. She also is a remarkably inept investigator (if what she does counts remotely as an "investigation"), not really thinking through any of the wild conclusions she leaps upon almost at random. I kept thinking of the opening sequence to the parody Scary Movie (the only remotely amusing part of that film, in my opinion), where the girl kept being presented with choices and always took the wrong one: finding a table full of weapons such as a gun and a grenade, she confidently grabs a banana, and when she flees and comes to a fork with signs pointing to Freedom and Certain Death, she hardly pauses before racing to the latter... only this wasn't a parody or an opening sequence, it was the whole of the book, as Alice repeatedly grabs bananas and keeps tripping on her way down the wrong path. The plot helpfully leads her around by her nose, a nose that's often practically pushed into solutions time and again that Alice refuses to see (in addition to freezing up at almost any stressor, she also adopts the winning survival tactic of closing her eyes, because anyone in a survival situation knows that what you don't see can't hurt you). The real culprit's obvious by the halfway point, and most of the distractions and jump-scares feel manipulative and telegraphed even to someone who doesn't watch a ton of slasher movies. There are numerous things that just plain don't make sense by the end, as well as a few last-minute twists that I won't get into for spoiler reasons but which dropped it to the rating it received.
(As a closing note, I still maintain that Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th was a much funnier horror parody than Scary Movie, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.)
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