Just the thing for readers who think their own work lives are high-stress drudgery.
Dr. Alex Cross and his wife each pursue an equally monstrous serial predator.
In this corner, the D.C. Metro Police Department, where Cross still serves as a consultant, brings him in to throw light on the murders committed by the Family Man, who breaks into upscale homes and shoots everyone inside: grandparents, parents, children. In this corner, Bree Stone, who’s moved from D.C. Metro to the Bluestone Group, is tasked with keeping everything hush-hush while she investigates a series of explosive charges against fashion queen Frances Duchaine, whom multiple litigants have accused of saddling them with insurmountable debts for plastic surgery she and her close associate Paula Watkins insisted they'd need to make it as models, then forcing them into sexual slavery when they couldn’t repay them. As Bree worms her way into ever darker allegations about Duchaine, the Family Man continues his open season on picture-perfect households. Then editor Suzanne Liu, who’s just been dumped by star true-crime author Thomas Tull, comes to Cross with an incredible story: Tull, whose pitch for a new book on the Family Man earned an eight-figure contract in a closed auction, has actually been killing all those people himself. As usual, Patterson throws everything against the wall to see what sticks until the two cases, either of them complicated enough to sustain an entire volume, eventually collide in a way that’s surprising but ultimately unsatisfying, and his triple cross falls flat.
Just the thing for readers who think their own work lives are high-stress drudgery.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-49918-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A great premise leads through all the twists you’d expect to a thoroughly muddy final movement.
Sports agent Myron Bolitar meets the Setup Serial Killer, who’s found a highly effective way to keep anyone from connecting the dots.
There’s no arguing with DNA evidence, the ultimate forensic clincher. So when basketball player Greg Downing’s DNA is found on the scene where retired model Cecelia Callister and her son, Clay, were killed, the FBI comes calling on Myron to ask where they can find Greg. Myron’s a reasonable person to ask because Greg was his schoolmate and former client, the man who wooed and won Myron’s girlfriend away from him and made her Emily Downing. Try as he might, though, Myron can’t help much beyond repeating the obvious: Greg died three years ago, and his body was cremated. Since the Feds aren’t about to give up their search, Myron and his partner, financial advisor Win Lockwood, decide they’d better see if they can get ahead of this story by confirming or contradicting the story of Greg’s death. Meantime, a series of interleaved episodes show the killer eliminating a series of primary targets and framing secondary targets so convincingly for the murders, with special thanks to planted DNA, that it never occurs to the police to connect crimes that were so readily solved on their own. Complications arise when Myron’s thrown together with Jeremy Downing, the son he fathered in a pre-wedding tryst with Emily and then passed off as Greg’s, and when the allies of mob boss Joseph “Joey the Toe” Turant, who was locked up four years ago after his DNA-fueled conviction for the murder of Jordan Kravat, decide to lean on Myron to get him to reveal where Greg is.
A great premise leads through all the twists you’d expect to a thoroughly muddy final movement.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9781538756317
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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