Not without its flaws, but dramatic cases and a delightfully peculiar protagonist give the novel great potential.
In Abraham’s debut thriller, a lawyer’s decision to take on the DEA despite unmitigated threats has consequences both good and bad.
Washington, D.C., attorney David Darden has his biggest case yet. Alexis Cortez was a confidential informant for the DEA, infiltrating drug cartels while handling the money-laundering operations. Unfortunately, the DEA hasn’t paid him the promised 8 percent of that money laundering; in fact, it hasn’t paid Alexis anything. Someone doesn’t want David to take the case: they harass him, vandalize his car and break into his office. But David is resolved to find justice for his client, who endured all types of danger while working with cartels. Alexis apparently isn’t the only CI the DEA has duped, and others soon seek David for help. Despite legal cases in Abraham’s novel all revolving around DEA informants, there’s enough distinction among them to maintain reader interest. The DEA may also be involved in false imprisonment and framing a CI for drug dealing, while a few agents are allegedly stealing goods from confiscations. There’s likewise a progression for David: while vacationing in Florida, he meets client Carlos Montoya, who becomes David’s close friend and co-worker. In fact, David is fascinating, more so than any of his clients: he was dealing drugs as a teen and funded law school with drug money. David and Carlos share everything, it seems, including dinners, clients, and even a love interest—forming a trio in lieu of romantic rivalry. Abraham’s book, however, is hampered by a number of errors that proofreading could have rectified. Carlos’ name, for one, is often written or uttered as Carlo, while Miami lawyer Roberto’s surname alternates between Alvarez and Rodriguez. Most glaringly, the tale of death row inmate Billy Bob is repeated to different characters in its entirety. Regardless, the story shines, and suspense is amplified when David and Carlos incite enough baddies that they’re forced to dodge bullets and endure a kidnapping. The open ending is a winner, too.
Not without its flaws, but dramatic cases and a delightfully peculiar protagonist give the novel great potential.Pub Date: June 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5123-1539-4
Page Count: 682
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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