The Mentor

May 1, 2017
A lack of suspense helps sink this middling thriller from Goldberg (Slow Down). William Lansing, a professor at Connecticut’s Bentley College, is excited to learn that a former student of his, Kyle Broder, is now an editor at a New York publishing house and has just signed a lucrative contract with a debut novelist. William has been laboring for years over his own novel, which he hopes his protégé will publish. When Kyle rejects the manuscript, which is full of torture and cannibalistic fantasies, William turns on Kyle and others in Kyle’s life. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that details of the manuscript reflect events that occurred in William’s and Kyle’s past. William is a stock psychopath, and Kyle comes across as a crass fool. For no clear reason, Kyle’s girlfriend insists that he finish reading William’s manuscript even after he tells her about the unpleasant subject matter. That these unlikable characters do nonsensical things presents another obstacle to enjoyment. Agent: Sam Hiyate, Rights Factory (Canada).

April 15, 2017
A book editor confronts the darkness of his past in Goldberg's (Slow Down, 2015) psychological thriller, a savvy parody in the vein of American Psycho.Kyle Broder's life looks golden: he's got a beautiful, successful, and undemanding girlfriend; and, as an untested editor at a big publishing firm, he's just discovered a young writer and nabbed her a huge advance on her raw first novel. When his former creative writing professor and mentor, William Lansing, contacts him to offer congratulations, Kyle is happy to invite William to dinner at his upscale apartment and introduce him to Jamie, the perfect girlfriend--who is also a phenomenal cook. Over dinner and vast quantities of good red wine, William asks Kyle for a favor: would Kyle be willing to read the novel he's been working on for 10 years and maybe put in a good word for him at the publishing house? Kyle enthusiastically agrees, but when he begins to read through William's novel, Devil's Hopyard, he's shocked and horrified to discover that it's not only badly written, but that it's rife with pornographic violence and cannibalism. As William becomes more and more insistent that Kyle help him publish his "masterpiece" and begins stalking both Jamie and Kyle, Kyle finds that William has even written him into the novel as a possible villain. Desperate to save his relationship, his reputation, and his life, he must confront William's madness--and try to keep this novel off the shelf. Goldberg's novel is not particularly well-written, but it is gripping. Like the Bret Easton Ellis novel it resembles, it succeeds as sharp and bitter satire--in this case, of the publishing industry and the sensationalism and barbarity that consumers crave. As often happens in satire, the characters quickly become caricatures, but the deeper implications about our society's obsession with violence are resonant and disturbing.

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May 1, 2017
A junior editor at a Manhattan publisher reunites with his college mentor with disastrous results in Goldberg's second thriller (after Slow Down, 2015). Kyle Broder has just acquired a probable best-seller for Burke & Burke publishing when he hears from his former literature professor, William Lansing, who pitches the still-unfinished opus he's been working on for 10 years. Lansing's book is not only badly written, it's also disturbing, featuring a narrator literally eating the heart of the woman he loves. Lansing turns vengeful when his masterpiece is rejected, but Broder's concerns about his mentor are dismissed both at home and at work: Broder's girlfriend considers Lansing charming, and a rival editor feigns interest in Lansing's book. Broder revisits his college and delves more deeply into the cold case of a missing ex-girlfriend, and as the plot darkens and spirals downward, it's unclear who will be left standing. The compelling plot is likely to carry readers with a high enough tolerance for gore to the final twist at the end.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)