A big book, and a pleasure for anyone who thrills at the likes of D’Artagnan and company.
A hit from the vaults: Dumas père’s final work, reconstructed from 140-year-old newspapers.
Dumas is renowned, of course, for swashbuckling tales such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, studded with cliffhangers and moral lessons lightly delivered. This title is of a piece, the wrinkle being that Dumas wrote it, à la Dickens, as a newspaper serial and was far from finishing the story when he died. Dumas scholar Claude Schopp, whose literary detective work is responsible for this book, published in France in 2005, hazards missing links and provides the closing chapters, working from Dumas’s notes; it’s a neat bit of literary sleight-of-hand. While telling a grand tale of adventure, Dumas reminds his readers that the glorious France of the Napoleonic era had plenty of inglorious moments. His Napoleon is smart and power-hungry, as he announces in the opening sentence: “Now that we are in the Tuileries…we must try to stay.” Easier said than done, for Napoleon is surrounded by enemies, mostly of the scheming-politician variety, and distracted from his duties by his wife’s lavish spending; there are wars to fight, too, and much else to be done. Enter the noble Saint-Hermine, stripped of his title, who, chapter by chapter, hacks his way across land and sea to redeem himself at places such as Trafalgar, where Dumas movingly depicts the death of Lord Nelson and breaks the fourth wall in the bargain (“It seems to me that one of the greatest warriors the world has ever known should be accompanied all the way to death’s door, if not by a historian, at least by a novelist”). Hermine has his enemies, too, and even a few friends, and sometimes both at once, among them the only man whom Napoleon fears—ah, and therein hangs a tale.
A big book, and a pleasure for anyone who thrills at the likes of D’Artagnan and company.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-933648-31-6
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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