If it never lives up to its brainy premise, Parks’ suspenseful novel will beguile, entrance, and fool the sharpest readers.
Parks unfolds a twisty tale about the kidnapping of a Dartmouth physicist whose recondite research has already been stalled by a mysterious malady.
The tobacco mosaic virus, the focus of professor Matt Bronik’s work in quantum interference—the big-picture question of whether “life can go quantum” because scientists can replicate small-scale quantum leaps on unsettlingly larger and larger scales—seems to be affecting him personally. Twice now he’s suddenly blacked out, gone into unexplained comas, and awoken with monster headaches. Has the virus been interfering with him so that his identity has been lost in the universe or merged with his surroundings—for example, with Sheena Aiyagari, the postdoctoral student who tells Detective Emmett Webster that her own mind seems to be merging with Matt’s? Beppe Valentino, his department chair, is worried, and Brigid Bronik, his wife, is frantic. When Matt is felled by a third attack, he’s bundled off to the hospital once more in a grim routine, but this time the ambulance never arrives there, and two of its three staffers are soon found shot dead. A demand for $5 million comes not to Brigid or the Dartmouth lab but to bored billionaire alum Sean Plottner, who’s been trying to get Matt to ditch his job and come work for him. As Webster and Plottner work at cross-purposes to rescue Matt, or to ensure or at least determine that he’s safe, Parks races toward a climax that mercifully leaves the game-changing, larger-than-life questions he’s raised behind.
If it never lives up to its brainy premise, Parks’ suspenseful novel will beguile, entrance, and fool the sharpest readers.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2339-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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 smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.
After the events of Book of Night (2022), Charlie Hall is forced to hunt down the perpetrator of a terrible massacre.
Charlie Hall is the Hierophant: It’s her job to be tethered to a powerful, independent shadow—a “Blight”— and hunt down other Blights for the Cabals, the heads of their respective shadow-magic specialties. The Cabals use the difficult job of Hierophant as a punishment, but Charlie agreed to take it on so she could be the person tethered to Vince, aka Red, the Blight who posed as a human and ended up dating and falling in love with Charlie. The Cabal leaders used magic to steal the part of Red’s memory that contained his relationship with Charlie, and so Charlie is determined to steal Red’s memories back. And she needs to move fast, because if Red doesn’t remember loving her, he just might be OK with Charlie being killed if it means his own freedom. Meanwhile, Mr. Punch, a terrifying Cabal leader who specializes in using shadow magic to possess other people’s bodies, has a job for Charlie: He wants her to find the culprit behind a terrible massacre that was attributed to a cult. He suspects that the people were actually killed by a Blight, and he doesn’t want the Cabals to face the blowback if the truth becomes public. Mr. Punch could do terrible things to Charlie if she fails, but if she succeeds, he’ll help Charlie and Red be free of the Cabals for good. The sophomore novel in a series is always tough, but this sequel proves that the second book can be even better than the first. Black turns the screws on the magical world she set up in Book 1, creating complicated political motives between Charlie and the Cabal leaders and making the question of what it means for a shadow, like Red, to have their own consciousness more interesting. Veteran con artist Charlie makes some truly brilliant moves, especially toward the end, where the last few chapters have one terrific surprise after the other.
A smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781250812223
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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