New Treasures: Reviver by Seth Patrick
I really haven’t been very good to fans of supernatural thrillers in my New Treasures columns recently. Honestly, I don’t hate you guys, there’s just been a lot of top-flight fantasy to gawk at lately.
But look, here I am with a peace offering: a peek at a great-looking debut horror/thriller novel just optioned by the producers of The Dark Knight Returns.
Jonah Miller is a Reviver, able to temporarily revive the dead so they can say goodbye to their loved ones—or tell the police who killed them.
Jonah works in a department of forensics created specifically for Revivers, and he’s the best in the business. For every high-profile corpse pushing daisies, it’s Jonah’s job to find justice for them. But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence. Something is on the other side watching. Waiting. His superiors tell him it’s only in his mind, a product of stress. Jonah isn’t so certain.
Then Daniel Harker, the first journalist to bring revival to public attention, is murdered. Jonah finds himself getting dragged into the hunt for answers. Working with Harker’s daughter Annabel, he becomes determined to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Soon they uncover long-hidden truths that call into doubt everything Jonah stands for, and reveal a sinister force that threatens us all.
Am I keeping you hip, or what?
The first novel in a projected trilogy, Reviver looks like the real thing. And if it’s made into a movie, now you can spoil the ending for all your friends in the popcorn line.
Reviver goes on sale next Tuesday, June 18th. It is published by Thomas Dunne Books. It is 416 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover, and $11.99 for the digital edition.
See all of our recent New Treasures articles here.
We know all the fanboys will jump all over this for being a rip-off of the TV series “Pushing Daisies”, so one wonders if, “For every high-profile corpse pushing daisies,” is a throw-away line or an implicit acknowledgement of that fact.
While “Pushing Daisies” is a favorite of mine, and might well have pushed “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” out of my all-time favorite spot if Daisies had continued on with the same quality for several more seasons, I’m not going to join the rip-off chorus. For one thing, the saying about there being only eight plots in the world is perhaps limited but has a grain of truth–it’s what’s done with the plot that counts. And what’s done with this basic plot point–reviving dead people tmeporarily to solve crimes or mysteries–veers wildly off from what the much more light-hearted Daisies did: “Something is on the other side watching. Waiting.”
I certainly want to check this out. Thanks for the heads-up!
You’re most welcome Allen!
And I continue to hear good things about PUSHING DAISIES. I promised myself I’d check it out last fall and I never got to it. Thanks for the reminder.
Just purchased the pre-order Kindle version, which is only $9.39 at the moment.
As for Pushing Daisies, if you have an Amazon Prime account (and I’ve had one since *long* before they started a streaming service, so I wouldn’t have to find $25 worth of stuff to buy every time I wanted to buy a simple paperback), they’re currently streaming even the HD version free. But if you’re like me, it’s more a time issue than a money issue. 😉
Whatever method you use to watch Pushing Daisies, make sure you can turn on subtitles. They throw a lot of dialogue at you fast, and you don’t want to miss it because it’s usually funny or at least interesting.
Allen — I purchased the DVD for season one of PUSHING DAISIES. I’ll let you know what I think!
And do the same for us for Reviver, will you?
John,
Thanks for the heads up on this book. It sounded very intriguing so I bought it on Amazon because my library didn’t have it and I didn’t want to wait. I just read it a couple of days ago.
First of all, I noticed that the title was a palindrome. Very cool. I wonder if that was deliberate. As I read I was amazed this was a first novel. Usually there’s always some sentence or wording that is not professional. (My favorite is the use of the word *for*: “I went to the store for I needed milk.”) When I finished reading and closed the book, I said Wow! and recommended it to several friends. The basic plot about the hereafter is not anything new. However, The plot structure of Reviver was well thought out and the characters were people I could relate to and enjoy. Most of all, Seth Patrick can really WRITE! I’m looking forward to more books from him.
Speaking of overdone plot devices, I’m getting pretty tired of zombies and serial killers. I’m beginning to believe that those plots are to fantasy and fiction what “the butler did it” was to mysteries.
Thanks again for reviewing this book, John.
BB