The Barrens /

On the heels of a short-story collection, Faithless [BKL F 1 01], the madly prolific Joyce Carol Oates turns in her eighth psychological suspense novel under the pseudonym she reserves for that genre. Mathias McBride is a successful realtor living in a tony New Jersey suburb far removed from the bleakness of his hardscrabble childhood; as a sideline, he takes arty urban photographs, often with grisly themes, and sells them under the name Nighthawk. Then he is interrogated by two homicide detectives investigating the disappearance of eccentric artist Duana Zolle, and his life takes a drastic turn. Although he has had only fleeting contact with the collage artist, it seems he plays a featured role in her diary--she was obsessed with him and saw him as a kindred spirit. Even as McBride's outward life begins to crumble under the stress of the investigation, he gains new insight into his emotional life and his art and begins his own investigation into Zolle's disappearance, which brings him into the demented world of an amateur artist. Although her plotting is feverish and over the top, Oates gives vivid expression here to the themes that seem to drive all of her work--sexual guilt, the nature of perception, the false self. She brings high emotion to her narrative, and the result is compelling reading. --Joanne Wilkinson

A serial killer and his pursuer engage in a lurid dance in this overextended psychological thriller written under the name Oates uses for her psycho-dramas (like Double Delight). The novel charts the emotional ruin of Matt McBride, a real estate agent in the upscale New Jersey suburb of Weymouth, where he lives with his attractive wife and their two sons. McBride has been haunted since childhood by the memory of a high school classmate whose body was found ravaged in the desolate Pine Barrens. Now, 20 years later, McBride becomes a suspect in the disappearance of local artist Duana Zwoll, a woman whom McBride knew and admired. Although McBride manages to convince the police of his innocence, he remains wracked by guilt that a second female acquaintance has met a ghastly end. As his marriage slowly crumbles, McBride fixates on finding the killer. He narrows his search to another local artist, the marginally talented yet ghoulishly eccentric Joseph Gavin, whose artwork appears to incorporate human body parts. Could he be the man responsible for the deaths of countless East Coast women in recent years? It's a testament to Oates's skill that the suspense is instant and intense. Her setting, which contrasts Weymouth's chi-chi facade with the tormented lives of its residents, is exquisite, as is her treatment of McBride's personal tailspin. Yet the motivation for his obsessive quest for the killer guilt at being unable to prevent two murders never quite convinces. Nor does the character of Gavin, whose repetitive spiritual rants and egomania bloat the story and make him more a figure of absurdity than a credible threat to human life. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Writing under an accustomed pseudonym, Oates offers a psychological thriller that isn't so much about the actual murders as a bystander's obsession with them. Matt McBride has had a lifelong preoccupation with the unsolved abduction and murder of a high school acquaintance. When an artist friend is murdered in a similar fashion, the obsession grows to the point of completely taking over McBride's life, destroying his marriage and career in the process. His uncommon interest and some incriminating evidence found in the victim's home make him a suspect in the eyes of the police. The story is taut, though the author misses several opportunities to capitalize on the circumstances she sets up. After over 200 pages of buildup, the resolution of the multiple murders comes so swiftly that it disappoints and leaves many questions unanswered. But the story seems to be more about missed opportunities, and the ending fits the flawed characters that Oates is so expert at creating. Recommended for all public libraries. Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Like Henry James perversely trying to make a second career by conquering the London stage, Joyce Carol Oates seems bent on devoting part of her prodigious gifts to pseudonymous neo-gothic thrillers like this latest. Twenty-one years after the murder and mutilation of high-school student Marcey Mason from his South Jersey hometown, and less than a week after the disappearance of graphic artist Duana Zwolle from the posh central Jersey community where he’s settled, the cops come calling on rising realtor Matt McBride. Under their probing questions, he admits that he had indeed known the missing woman, but he doesn’t admit that he’d taken a series of photographs of her house, or that he’d just had a nightmare about the earlier victim. Although Matt writhes so desperately under official pressure that he seems a good bet to be the killer, it’s clear early on that Duana and Marcey (and, as it turns out, quite a few others) have been murdered by welder Joseph Gavin, who signs both his sculptures and his victims NAME UNKNOWN. Terrified that he’s losing control of the good life he’s taken for granted and haunted by Smith’s incantatory prose (“People always know more than they think they know” is perhaps the most resonant of several mantras here), Matt launches his own search for Duana’s killer and plunges into a thicket of Smith’s trademark twins. Duana herself turns out to have a biological twin that anchors her doubling with her friend Oriana, a potter and painter Matt is unhealthily drawn toward; Matt serves as his own double (he signs his photos “Nighthawk”); and he’s eventually paired with the creepy, if never exactly memorable, NAME UNKNOWN. Not the best or worst of the overheated, essentially routine thrillers (Starr Bright Will Be with You Soon, 1999, etc.) signed by the author’s own double, but a puzzling waste of Oates’s talent.