A compact, harrowing story of a vengeful curse unleashed.
In Bills’ novella, a small town’s racist past demands a reckoning.
Billy Dunphee, sheriff of the county that contains the tiny town of Harkin, Texas, is called to investigate a mysterious event: Edna Jenkins, calling from Troup, an even smaller town, is alarmed because something bizarre has happened to her grandfather, Tieg Bertram, who has only recently returned to the Harkin area. When Sheriff Dunphee arrives, he finds a pile of ashes on a bed (“I don’t mean to be indelicate, but I have to ask,” Dunphee says to Edna. “You didn’t do this, did you?”). Strange as it seems, Bertram appears to be the victim of spontaneous combustion. Sheriff Dunphee is still reeling when he mentions it to local diner owner Nat, who gives him another surprise: Bertram had been part of a horrible crime a generation ago, when seven young Harkin men lynched a Black man named Pettigrew Smith—on the damning accusation of Dunphee’s own grandmother. “Harkin wasn’t big enough for secrets,” Dunphee believed, but now, “he suddenly felt like he had no idea where he was from or who the people he grew up with were.” A seemingly impossible threat is stalking the surviving participants in that long-ago crime, with Sheriff Dunphee caught in the middle. From this fraught premise, Bills crafts a very effective thriller that adroitly doubles as a meditation on the region’s blood-drenched racial history. (“The game went on and on,” Nat tells Dunphee. “White folks just kept going, running up the score – and black folks just kept on dyin.’”) In quick, deft strokes, Bills crafts a believable cast, ratchets up the tension, and provides a thoroughly satisfying twist at the end of the tale. This short, powerful story is first-rate, thinking person’s horror writing.
A compact, harrowing story of a vengeful curse unleashed.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798218252229
Page Count: 86
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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