Publisher's Weekly Review
Silvis (the Ryan DeMarco series) serves as his own protagonist in this frustrating standalone. Silvis, who lives in Pennsylvania's rural Mercer County, is in search of a subject for his next book when he's approached by Thomas Kennaday, who provides him with details about a local mystery involving an abandoned baby and the shooting deaths of two adults and a child. When pressed, Kennaday refuses to explain how he seems to know even more about these things than the police do and departs. As Silvis begins to investigate, the mystery becomes less about Baby Doe and the murders than about Kennaday himself. Who is he? How does he know as much as he does, including details of future events? How is he able to predict what Silvis will do before Silvis does it? What starts out as a conventional mystery swerves into paranormal territory with references to conspiracy theories, inexplicable events, fringe science, New Age spirituality, and lengthy speculations about other realities. Such topics do little to enhance the plot. This weird novel is unlikely to win Silvis new fans. Agent: Sandy Lu, Book Wyrm Literary. (Aug.)
Kirkus Review
The latest mind-bending thriller from Silvis is "inspired by true events"--though provoked might be more exact. Sitting at a Chinese buffet minding his own business, the narrator, one Randall Silvis, is accosted by Thomas Kenneday, who, accurately categorizing Silvis as a veteran crime novelist, sits down unbidden, unfolds a wild story about potential connections between a triple murder and the discovery of an abandoned baby the following day, and invites Silvis to look into the case, or cases, himself. There doesn't seem to be much mystery about the murders: Justin Cirillo, who broke into the home of Dianne Burchette with Jolene Mrozek and Eddie Hudack, has already confessed to shooting Dianne; her boyfriend, Barry Faye; and her 7-year-old daughter, Michelle Jordan. But nobody can identify Baby Doe or explain why she was abandoned in the woods near New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, with a concussion and a broken leg. Unable to find Kenneday after their initial meeting, Silvis approaches Eddie Hudack's sister, Phoebe, a tenant in Dianne's house, for the first of several maddeningly elliptical interviews about the facts behind Justin's unexplained rampage. But his discoveries about the possible relationships among Justin, Dianne, and Baby Doe are rapidly overshadowed by a series of hints about the possible involvement of "men in black, Dan Aykroyd, UFOs, time-traveling cops, Hells Angels, child sexual abuse, disappearing police and prosecutors." Dazzled and dazed by the otherworldly revelations visited on him, Silvis can only conclude that "a war is being fought on this planet for the minds and souls of all of us." A fearfully ambitious muddle whose most lucid feature is the appended Reading Group Guide. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
He never got that bit about, "It's the journey, not the destination," a character announces near the halfway mark in this novel. "Why go somewhere if you're not really going somewhere?" It's a good way to approach this mind-wrench of a book. Silvis is the author of the Ryan DeMarco mysteries, yet when we meet him here as a character in his own narrative, he's written out. Then a stranger tells him of gruesome murders and an abandoned infant nearby. Might this be the spark to get him back to his keyboard? Inquiries begin, and here readers must be prepared for an extended series of asides. Some are affecting, like the account of John Steinbeck's last years, and some are grade-A wackadoodle: JFK and RFK were likely murdered by the CIA, and aliens may be secretly collaborating with earthling politicians. Then come pedophile rings--their numbers boasting one-percenters and members of the Hollywood elite--along with vertical time travel and magical medallions. Still, Silvis writes beautifully, making these dips entertaining, He spins what he calls accurately, "pretty sentences." Well, maybe it is the journey.
