Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips (Viking, 2017) got raves from Lucinda Surber of Stop! You’re Killing Me last year when it was released, and it’s been on my TBR list ever since. Further inquiry reveals she is not alone in thinking this is an excellent book. The New York Times Book Review named it one of the best crime novels of 2017, and it received a trifecta of starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly.

It opens simply enough. Joan is urging her 4-year-old son Lincoln to pick up his toys so they can leave the zoo just before closing one day. When she finally has gathered the last superhero figure and they make their way to the gate, she sees, in a sickeningly familiar scenario, men with guns enter and start shooting every person they see. She clutches her son and runs the other way, back into the zoo, searching for a place to hide. Her knowledge of the zoo helps them to a place of safety, where she is preoccupied with keeping her chatterbox of a child quiet while they wait for the police. Lincoln is an inveterate story-teller and she is worried sick he will give their hiding place away. The tense narrative carries the reader along with Joan as she inwardly listens for footsteps and gunfire while she outwardly calms her son.

Other people are hiding in the zoo as well and some chapters are written from their points of view. A couple are written from the shooters’ perspective, but most of the book reflects Joan’s experience. The entire book, nearly 300 pages, takes place in about 3 hours.

This is at once a tightly written, highly suspenseful narrative of a life-and-death chase played out by people any of us might know and the story of a mother’s fascination with the new life she’s been given to nurture and her primal urge to protect it. The flora and the fauna of the zoo are lovingly described in some of my favorite parts of the book. It’s clear the author is a devoted nature lover.

I read this fast-paced, unusual book in a single sitting. Highly recommended.

·         Hardcover: 288 pages

·         Publisher: Viking; First Edition (July 25, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0735224277

·         ISBN-13: 978-0735224278

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.