Customer Reviews

Callous

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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.

This book is the ever-lovin' bomb! I checked it out and it's a checkered flag with a check-mark and an exclamation point! Just when you think you know what's going on, WHAM! That crazy-mass author hits you with annuther big bomb of plot twist that knocks you off your feet BADA-BING! The ending isn't just da bomb, it's an explosion!

Okay, I'm not so much into mysteries and thrillers. But this book is a "genre-bender" in the best sense. It offers so much, in both depth and edge-of-seat storytelling. If you like to be simultaneously entertained and challenged, this book is for you. I enjoyed the HECK out of it.

With "Rabid" as a first release, TK Kenyon established herself as a writer that could push your imagination while making you happily uncomfortable. With Callous... she has grown as an author and managed to tone down the quirks in "Rabid" that made me realize I was reading a fiction book while dialing up the suspense. This book is masterfully written and while not as cutting edge as a Chuck Palahniuk novel... it certainly challenges you on a number of levels. TK has done an excellent job of creating a spiral in this story where each turn of plot pulls this small TX town deeper and deeper into a manic episode of self destructive behavior and as you cling to the stability of a few characters, you as the reader, will revel in the difficulties that are created by the rest of the cast. "Callous" represents a big step forward for TK Kenyon and not only have I recommended it to everyone that I know, It has also cemented me as a loyal TK Kenyon fan. I hope to be reading her for years to come.

Considering that several Texan cults are currently in the news (like the FLDS and that creepy guy who lays down naked with virgins,) Callous is spookily prescient and yet hauntingly timeless.

The action centers around a cult, the Country Congregationalist Bible Church. (Get the reference to Our Town?) This church isn't *predicting* the end of the world. It's *instigating* it. The church's pastor, while not a POV character, is a cross between Barack Obama and Charles Manson: witty, smart, and charismatic enough to get people to follow him to Hell.

The five main characters are varied and all at odds with each other. Diane, the DA, and Zeke are members of the cult. Zeke's daughter goes missing on the first page.

Diane's husband, Max, is the head deputy and the best investigator in Texas, and he investigates the girl's disappearance, even though he thinks she's probably just run off with some boy.

Vanessa, the Cassandra and the vamp, is the missing girl's childhood friend and now a forensic scientist. She's convinced that the girl was taken by a serial killer because she sees all the signs, but no one will listen to her.

The last major character, P.J., is the only witness, maybe. She's a Goth and a high school girl, adopted from India when she was small child.

This missing-person mystery segues artfully into an inquiry into the nature of evil and memory. I'm an MD, and the careful and accurate reaches into neuroscience are all correct and startling. This is another example of a novelist, like Proust, scooping the neuroscientists, except that Kenyon is a neuroscientist and is writing about the soul and pack of neurons that we think we rise above.

There is one lovely section that does for neuroscience and memory what Primo Levi (in The Periodic Table ) did for carbon and the period, this one, right here.

Veronica

CALLOUS is about persons becoming unfeeling, or are they born that way? At best, it's a frivolous page-turner. Woven within the pages the author lectures about: Missing children; Child sexual abuse; Child protective services; International adoption; The Criminal justice system; The Internet and Social networking; Law enforcement; Publishing; The Media; Murder; Cults; Religious fundamentalism; Drug addiction; Terrorism; Pornography; The Hero complex; Groupthink; Small towns; Imprinting; Physics; Chemistry; Genetic engineering; Cows; Cats; and Free Will. Just who is saying or thinking what is hard to discern. I think that's called voice and point of view. There is disagreeableness about all the characters, an overall sense of hostility, and a pervasive loneliness. But in the end ... Love conquers all. Sorry T.K. the story just doesn't work. Her first novel, RABID, I thought was fantastic. CALLOUS doesn't measure up. I think it's biology, genetics, probability or something--regression to the mean.

I was hoping to like this book, I enjoyed Rabid, but it jumped around and seemed to be trying to tell one story, but faded away and started to tell another then the same thing. As a reader, I didn't feel I was in very competent hands. It wasn't fulfilling as a good thriller, a look at hypocracy in religous beliefs, or even a metaphysical treatise on the old genetic questions of free will or divine providence.