Callous [Hardcover]

T K Kenyon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

The disappearance of an attractive young woman plunges a small Texas town into a frenzy of paranoia and recrimination. With each day Ester remains missing, the accusations and rumors grow wilder and more outrageous. Assistant DA Diane Marshall and her husband, Deputy Max Konstantin, investigate the usual leads, including the unorthodox tenets of Ester's conservative Christian sect and her father’s peculiar business dealings. Mounting forensic evidence and a chilling eyewitness account suggest that Ester is the victim of abduction and satanic ritual murder. When the witness names the deputy sheriff as the murderer, the townspeople reach the brink of hysteria. The labyrinthine plot of this singular crime drama probes themes of faith and prayer, forensic investigation, moral panic, mass delusion, and false memory.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Kenyon revisits themes from her first novel, Rabid (2007)—small-town intrigue, salacious carryings-on, scientific research, religious fervor. Ester, the grown daughter of a small-town Texas rancher, disappears, and the husband-wife team of Max (chief deputy) and Diane (county DA) are on the case. Max prefers to rely on old-fashioned investigative techniques rather than the forensic science mumbo jumbo espoused by Vanessa, Ester’s childhood friend and the first to discover her missing. Diane can appreciate that, though she’s starting to rely more on her faith than the law; she secretly studies the Bible, as Max would dismiss that as more mumbo jumbo. Naturally, the faithful are pitted against the unfaithful here, and while the outcome isn’t wholly conventional, there’s no ignoring the author’s message that non-Christians have troubled souls. The preachy tone gets in the way, but the author still manages some of the crisp character studies that distinguished her first book and also generates considerable tension on the way to a surprising finish. --Mary Frances Wilkens

Review

"Kenyon revisits themes from her first novel, Rabid—small-town intrigue, salacious carryings-on, scientific research, religious fervor . . . crisp character studies . . . considerable tension on the way to a surprising finish."  —Booklist

"Kenyon is definitely a keeper."  —David Pitt, Booklist on Rabid (starred review)

"Impressive medical thriller." —Publishers Weekly on Rabid

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Kunati Inc. (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601640226
• ISBN-13: 978-1601640222
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,688,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

TK Kenyon is an Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate, novelist, award-winning short story writer, pharmaceutical industry regulatory consultant, technical writer, molecular virologist, neuroscientist, minivan-driving mom, happy wife, cat slave, P90X devotee, surfer, high-handicap golfer, scuba diver, gourmet chef, mostly vegetarian, chocolatier, gardener, capsaicin addict, caffeine junkie, Apache and Scot descendant, native Arizonan, Connectikite, unapologetic Oxfordian, nouveau feminist, political moderate with extremist tendencies, radical atheist, Buddhist-curious, occasional UU, Tamil Ayer Brahmin Hindu by marriage, ex-actress, grown-up child beauty queen, PhD, MFA, BS (in so many ways), ASU Sun Devil, Iowa Hawkeye, UPenn Quaker, and always looking for something interesting to do.

Dr. Kenyon's Daily Writing Apple is a daily writing prompt to help you with your fiction work-in progress, instead of an unrelated writing exercise in creative futility that asks you to write about an elephant or how some other character feels. Subscribe via Atom Posts at http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com or Like on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Kenyons-Daily-Writing-Apple.

Twitter: @TKKenyon.

If you found a mistake or typo in an ebook, you may be a winner! Please email the author at the link provided at the end of the ebook and describe the typo and where it is (anything: a percent through the book, the sentence with the typo and chapter, chapter and paragraph number, etc.) The first person to report each typo or mistake will receive a free ebook for the e-reader of their choice.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Murder and More In A Small town, May 1, 2008

By 

David Donelson "Author of The Dynamic Manager... - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Callous (Hardcover)

What is it about small towns? Are they magnets for outrageous murderers or what? Or, maybe it's just TK Kenyon's over-active but well-expressed imagination that makes you want to look inside the brain of every slow-talkin' hayseed you meet to see if there's mayhem lurking around somewhere in there.

Like Kenyon's first novel, Rabid, this one draws convoluted lines of battle between science and religion. There is also a big dose of small-town intrigue and some really smart law enforcement folks, although you don't always notice that right away. Kenyon has a way of painting vivid characters with a broad brush, although she also keeps a few character traits in reserve to keep things interesting.

The book starts conventionally enough, with the disappearance of Ester, the adult daughter of a rancher in Texas. Chief Deputy Max, an old-fashioned cop if there ever was one, is on the case with his wife, County DA Diane, who is a secret Bible reader. You can't have a murder mystery these days without forensics, either, so Ester's childhood friend Vanessa carries on that theme.

The tension and suspense build throughout the book, which makes it a tempting one-sitting read. If you get hooked on it, though, take time to enjoy Kenyon's characters, who offer a lot of detail to study. There's an unconventional ending, too, but I better not say anymore about that.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Novel -- My book club's going to argue all night!, April 29, 2008

By 

Minna Minocha "I'm always reading something!" (Iowa, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Callous (Hardcover)

As soon as I saw that Amazon had T.K.'s new book, I had it overnighted and then I stayed up all night reading it! Wow!

Callous isn't as *graphic* as Rabid, which is good because Rabid made me blink a couple times. Callus is, however, even better in a lot of other ways, and that's saying something.

The characters are even deeper and richer, and you care about them more and more as the book goes on. When one of the characters has a final breakdown (I don't want to ruin it for you!) and then goes on to save people, it breaks your heart and makes you cheer at the same time.

The plot of Callous is even more convoluted then Rabid, but it's never confusing. The characters have a lot of secrets, which is what makes T.K.'s writing so exciting, and they change what's going on. Twice in the book, I thought, "Oh my goodness! She can't do that!" But she did. And it worked really well. And, considering what's going on in Texas right now, I'm astonished at how well T.K. predicted what Texans do.

And the character's secrets! I don't want to spoil it for you, but there's a lot there. There's a lot of rumination about evil and what people do in the name of good. Of the five viewpoint charcters, one is a serial killer. Read carefully. It's amazing.

I'm writing this review ahead of my book club's meeting because we don't discuss the book before we meet, and Callus isn't on the docket for another two months. But it's great. It's really, really great. It has so much going on that I'm going to read it again before the club meets because, the first time I read it, I raced through to find out *what happened* instead of savoring the character's and the prose.

As I've said in other reviews, I'm originally from India, so I don't know all the Christian stuff as well as other people do, but Callous wasn't hard for me to understand. It was all explained. And it scared me a little!

Minna in Iowa

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zealous, May 2, 2008

By 

Peter Clenott "penguin" (Haverhill, Ma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Callous (Hardcover)

T K Kenyon is launching a literary career from small town Texas. Like the best mystery writers, she has created a unique geographic niche with characters that are every day believable. CALLOUS is hardly a stereotypical mystery where the only plot motivation is to figure out whodunnit. The characters and plot are complex. There is more in the lives of the husband and wife detectives than solving mysteries. You care about them as people as they sort out the differences in their lives. CALLOUS is for those who enjoy mnystery, for those who care about characters, and for those who just enjoy a good can-t-put-it-down read. Highly recommended.