The opening of a major film festival goes off script when the CEO’s former husband and his half brother—her current lover—go missing.
In Walsh’s suspenseful debut about the politics, pressure, and glamour behind the scenes of an international film fest, Jane Browning pole-vaults from artistic director to acting CEO of a famous Canadian Film Festival after allegations of sexual wrongdoing sideline the organization’s head. Problems plague the festival: A sponsoring Asian country wants veto power over the screening of a documentary critical of its government, and a hotel maid accuses a famed director of assault, landing him in jail instead of on the red carpet. Jane’s partner of seven years, Bob Walker-Smythe, doesn’t show on the festival’s opening night, and he fails to answer his cell. The previous month, Bob’s half brother Johnnie, who’s Jane’s ex, went AWOL. After Johnnie and Jane had called it quits, she hooked up with Bob (the “sexual tension was exquisite”), and the three of them are now business partners in Smythe Financial, a midsize firm. Her festival a madhouse and her lover missing, Jane’s life is complicated further when the Ontario Securities Commission announces there’s major money missing from Smythe Financial. Tension becomes palpable when Jane realizes someone is stalking her. The title of this taut, thrilling literary novel, written by a former film producer, refers to a camera technique in which the focus adjusts from one character to another. Similarly, the reader’s focus changes from one of Jane’s worsening problems to another. She imagines her varying situations as a filmmaker would. For example, after typing an address into her phone’s GPS, she follows the route on the screen, “watching the journey as a director might: a long establishing shot of a city neighborhood, circuitous jungle of one-way streets, dead ends, and glass towers.” There are rich descriptions throughout; for example, a woman “vibrated with triumph,” and a man’s flesh was as cold as imagined, “although also sweaty, which was an unwelcome surprise.”
Two thumbs up for action, suspense, and lust.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1770415799
Page Count: 272
Publisher: ECW Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | INTERNATIONAL CRIME | ROMANCE
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
When a family convenes at their Cape Cod summer home for a wedding, old secrets threaten to ruin everything.
Sarah Danhauser is shocked when her beloved stepdaughter announces her engagement to her boyfriend, Gabe. After all, Ruby’s only 22, and Sarah suspects that their relationship was fast-tracked because of the time they spent together in quarantine during the early days of the pandemic. Sarah’s mother, Veronica, is thrilled, mostly because she longs to have the entire family together for one last celebration before she puts their Cape Cod summer house on the market. But getting to Ruby and Gabe’s wedding might prove more difficult than anyone thought. Sarah can’t figure out why her husband, Eli, has been so distant and distracted ever since Ruby moved home to Park Slope (bringing Gabe with her), and she's afraid he may be having an affair. Veronica is afraid that a long-ago dalliance might come back to bite her. Ruby isn’t sure how to process the conflicting feelings she’s having about her upcoming nuptials. And Sam, Sarah’s twin brother, is a recent widower who’s dealing with some pretty big romantic confusion. As the entire extended family, along with Gabe’s relatives, converges on the summer house, secrets become impossible to keep, and it quickly becomes clear that this might not be the perfect gathering Veronica was envisioning. If they make it to the wedding, will their family survive the aftermath? Weiner creates a story with all the misunderstandings and miscommunications of a screwball comedy or a Shakespeare play (think A Midsummer Night’s Dream). But the surprising, over-the-top actions of the characters are grounded by a realistic and moving look at grief and ambition (particularly for Sarah and Veronica, both of whom give up demanding creative careers early on). At times the flashbacks can slow down the story, but even when the characters are lying, cheating, and hiding from each other, they still seem like a real and loving family.
An alternately farcical and poignant look at family bonds.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3357-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | LITERARY FICTION
Did you like this book?
This debut novel from Walking Dead actor Reedus follows three thematically connected yet narratively unrelated people as they journey to find themselves.
Hunter, a heavily tatted Iraq War vet and self-proclaimed gearhead, attacks his boss at the bike shop after catching him kicking a dog. “Hunter was old school,” the narrator says, rough-hewn but with strong moral fiber and a heart of gold. After learning his father died in a “mysterious house fire” in California, Hunter hops on his Buell S1 motorcycle alongside his buddies Nugget and Itch for a cross-country haul to execute the will. Meanwhile, a wealthy 65-year-old executive named Jack is mugged while traveling aimlessly through South America, neither the first nor the last of his hardships. Jack abandoned his cushy, bloodless office lifestyle after his dying mother told him to “run and never look back,” words he continuously labors to unpack. Finally, Anne, an abused teenage girl in Tennessee, steals her father’s savings and .38 revolver and runs away from home, clobbering her brother upside the head with a cast-iron skillet when he tries to stop her. She connects with her friend Trot, and they join a community of train-hoppers. Co-written by Bill, the story reads like a pastiche of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the latter of which is name-dropped as “great” by multiple characters. Though occasionally hitting some beautiful imagery of the American heartland, Reedus falls victim to implausible dialogue—“Fabiola, you are reading me like a stock report,” Jack says—and overcooked language: “flesh the color of a high-dollar medium-roast coffee bean.” Frequently wordy summaries do little to develop the thinly sketched characters; we know nearly as much about them on Page 25 as on Page 250.
A curious fetishization of outsiders, outlaws, and the down-and-out.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-09-416680-3
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION
Did you like this book?
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
