All the demons are here A novel

CNN news anchor Tapper's limp third mystery featuring the Marder family (following 2021's The Devil May Dance) shifts focus from politician Charlie Marder to his children, Ike and Lucy, in a narrative that toggles between developments in their lives in 1977. Ike, who was traumatized by a combat mission in Lebanon, has joined celebrity daredevil Evel Knievel in Montana as a member of his pit crew. Meanwhile, Lucy has been lured from her reporting job at Washington, D.C.'s Star newspaper after being cheated out of a byline to join the Sentinel, a lurid tabloid published by a Rupert Murdoch stand-in. As Ike struggles with violent impulses and his fraught relationship with Knievel, Lucy's editors challenge her journalistic ethics when they try to pin the identity of a possible D.C.-area serial killer on a young Black man, despite the results of Lucy's own investigation. Overwrought prose ("For America, the entire decade was like a once-glossy Polaroid fading in the sun, all that had been vibrant proven ephemeral") doesn't help sell some wildly improbable plot developments. When a character literally jumps the shark, it's a sign that Tapper's formerly exciting series may have done so as well. Agent: Robert B. Barnett, Williams & Connolly. (July)

Tapper's family saga--begun in The Devil May Dance (2021)--continues in 1977 with Sen. Charlie Marder's son, Ike, hiding out with Evel Knievel in Montana, and daughter, Lucy, a budding reporter, tracking a serial killer in Virginia. Ike, an AWOL Marine, has joined the bad-tempered Knievel's pit crew as a way of eluding military authorities following a mysterious incident in Lebanon that left him with bullet wounds and a broken leg. Lucy, clinging to the notion that her job as a journalist "is to educate and enlighten," has been lured to a new tabloid owned by a Murdoch-like family. With the death of Elvis Presley and the Son of Sam's killings fouling the national mood, "everyone's on edge," one character says. Ultimately, the siblings' paths intersect on a Georgia island where their father is attending a Republican retreat and members of a freaky religious cult are planning a violent demonstration. A devoted history buff, Tapper, the CNN host, litters his novels with period details, movie and book references, political commentary, and celebrity cameos (Lucy's heroes Woodward and Bernstein make appearances). Ultimately, they serve the narrative less than the narrative serves them. Tapper feels compelled to explain his characters' references to familiar things, rather oddly including footnotes in chapters narrated by Lucy (Cindy-Lou Who, she tells us, was her favorite character in How the Grinch Stole Christmas). The serial killings stay on a back burner, Knievel is a concept more than a character, and Elvis gets an undue amount of attention. "It was hard to explain if you didn't already worship at the altar of the King," says Ike. More of an effort to do so would go a long way. A quasi-mystery in search of authenticity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.