Review by New York Times Review
JERUSALEM, by Alan Moore. (Liveright, $24.95.) In a sprawling tribute to his hometown, Moore, the author of "Watchmen" and other graphic novels, traces a single day in Northampton, England, in 2006. The book fuses fantasy and even Joycean tropes to create an entertaining, passionate story. As our reviewer, Douglas Wolk, put it, "It's a vehicle for nothing less than Moore's personal cosmology of space, time and life after death." LEONARDO DA VINCI, by Walter Isaacson. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) Isaacson, an acclaimed biographer of the futurists Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, turns his focus to the far-ranging talents of the Renaissance genius. The book deals plainly with Leonardo's contradictions, giving the story complexity and depth, and Isaacson interweaves his subject's contemplations of nature with his art. THE CHILD FINDER, by Rene Denfeld. (Harper Perennial, $15.99.) Naomi, a private investigator in Oregon and the novel's title character, is known for her particular aptitude in tracking down lost children. On the hunt for Madison, who's been lost for three years, Naomi confronts memories of her own past as a missing child. The story shifts between her perspective and Madison's, revealing the child's tactics to survive captivity. HOW TO TAME A FOX (AND BUILD A DOG): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution, by Lee Alan Dugatkln and Lyudmila Trut. (University of Chicago, $18.) How did dogs become dogs? This book considers a pioneering Soviet study begun the late 1950s that replicated the domestication process with silver foxes; Trut is the current lead researcher on the project. Our reviewer, Marlene Zuk, praised the book, writing, "It is the backdrop to a story that is part science, part Russian fairy tale and part spy thriller." HALF-LIGHT: Collected Poems, 1965-2016, by Frank Bidart. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $20.) The poems across this collection, winner of the 2017 National Book Award, trace Bidart's evolution over his decades-long career. On display is his approach to autobiographical poetry, interweaving the inner lives of other people (both real and fictional); the method and the resulting poems rank among his most significant contributions to the genre. THE VANITY FAIR DIARIES: Power, Wealth, Celebrity, and Dreams: My Years at the Magazine That Defined a Decade, by Tina Brown. (Picador, $20.) Brown's account of Vanity Fair in the 1980s and early 1990s - by all measures a period of splashy excess - will thrill media junkies. It also offers a look at Brown's own insecurities, particularly the strains of being a career-driven mother.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 21, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Denfeld, whose first novel, The Enchanted (2014), explored the mythic properties and imaginative possibilities of prison, again finds inspiration in dark places. Naomi has earned a reputation as an investigator with a gift for finding missing children, or determining for certain that they will not be found. This time Naomi, once a lost child herself, seeks Madison Culver, who disappeared three years ago, at age five, during a family outing to chop down a Christmas tree in Oregon's beautiful, snow-laden, and inhospitable Skookum forest. Into Naomi's search for Madison, her tentative prodding at her own past, and involvement in a missing-baby case, Denfeld splices in the narration of a young snow girl, who is imaginatively surviving her violent imprisonment with the unspeaking Mr. B, whom she believes is her husband, by adopting an identity from her favorite Russian fairy tale. Aptly unclassifiable, Denfeld's compulsively readable second novel calls on elements of horror, suspense, and fairy tales to explore legacies of abuse and the resilience of the most vulnerable among us.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
An investigator seeks missing children in the remote reaches of an Oregon forest in this intense novel by Denfeld (The Enchanted). Private investigator Naomi cannot remember anything in her life before running in terror through a dark strawberry field as a child. Now in her late 20s, the titular "child finder" carries the burdens of a solitary career finding missing children. Her newest case-the disappearance of five-year-old Madison Culver three years ago somewhere in a glacier-studded national forest in rural Oregon-collides with a time of sickness and loneliness within her little remaining family. Her foster brother, Jerome, who suffers from a war injury, must care for the woman who raised them, Mrs. Cottle, while Naomi works. As Naomi follows clues, her lucid dreams become clearer, and the voice of an unnamed child tells her own story as the search for Madison unfolds. Using multiple voices, Denfeld takes an innovative approach to dealing with the pain of trauma, taking moments of darkness and frailty and probing them in heartbreaking, surprising ways. Naomi is a broken but ethical protagonist who always holds out hope: for the children yet to be found, the adults searching for missing loved ones, and herself as she tries to overcome past traumas. The conclusion will leave readers breathless. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In her sophomore novel, Denfeld (The Enchanted) has created a glittering gem of a story-part mystery, part fairy tale, and all white-knuckled, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Set in the snow-choked world of Oregon's Skookum National Forest, Denfeld's tale revolves around the work of Naomi, an investigator known as "the Child Finder" who helps families track down their missing children. Calm, methodical, and determined, Naomi is single-minded in her pursuit of those lost because she was once a lost girl, too. As the book opens, she is meeting with the parents of Madison Culver, who disappeared three years before during a family trip to the forest to cut down a Christmas tree. Many have written off Madison for dead, but Naomi is willing to consider alternatives-even though the search causes her to remember long-lost scenes from her own tragic past. As the story alternates between Naomi's voice and that of a "snow child" who believes that she is living in a fairy tale, readers will be drawn in by Denfeld's lyrical prose and undone by the brutal reality that Naomi uncovers, just beneath the snowy forest floor. Verdict Strongly recommended for readers who enjoy the work of authors such as Jane Hamilton and M.L. Stedman (The Light Between Oceans). [See Prepub Alert, 3/27/17.]-Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A gifted investigator combs Oregon's snowy mountain forests for a missing girl.Naomi Cottle is a child finder. Grieving families call on her when their children go missing, and she devotes her entire life to finding them, sometimes dead and sometimes miraculously alive. Like many literary detectives, her personal life suffers for her single-mindedness: she has few friends and remains in only intermittent contact with her foster family. In her latest case, she's been asked to find a girl named Madison Culver, who went missing three years ago, at the age of 5. Although the locals assume Madison froze to death, Naomi, propelled by her own vague early memories of being held hostage as a child, is determined to locate the girl. At the same time Naomi searches for clues in Madison's disappearance, readers are privy to Madison's narrative as she's locked in a cellar with a man she knows only as B. With nothing but her daydreams and memories of fairy tales to keep her sane, Madison reinvents herself as the snow girl and wonders whether the life she once had is gone forever. Aside from a clumsy subplot about Naomi searching for a baby from an impoverished community, Denfeld (The Enchanted, 2014, etc.) keeps the pacing quick as readers rush to discover Madison's fate. While Denfeld's message is meant to be redemptiveno loved child will ever be forgottenmake no mistake: this is also a book that is frankly about the sexual abuse of children. And though Denfeld is no doubt trying to explore the psychological realities of this abuse, and of conditions like Stockholm syndrome, her tendency toward florid writing can make her depiction feel romanticized and takes the book at times from disquieting into downright unpalatable. Denfeld's intentions are good, but her tone strikes the wrong notes. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
