Less fun than an hour-long bagpipe recital, and no more serious competition to Lee Childs’ military police stories than...
What else would you expect on Guy Fawkes Day but an explosion?
Every year, the British military base in Germany commemorates the 5th of November with a huge bonfire that elicits oohs and aahs from service personnel and their families. This year, a battalion of Drumdorran Fusiliers arrives just in time to be piped in for the celebration, but the screeching of the bagpipes is drowned out by an unplanned explosion that sends debris flying, badly burns an officer’s young son and kills the Pipe Major’s wife. Although the garrison commander is away at a conference, Max Rydal and Tom Black of 26 Section, Special Investigative Branch, Military Police, are on hand to sort through the chaos. Were terrorists targeting the base? Why were the Pipe Major and his wife living apart? Did any of the soldiers responsible for setting the bonfire add extra charges to humiliate a tyrannical officer? A few nights later, there’s more chaos when someone sets fire to the hedges outside the mess. The base erupts, with battalions from the West Wiltshire Regiment battling the Royal Cumberland Rifles, the Royal Engineers feuding with the Royal Signals and everyone ganging up on the poor Scots. Meanwhile, Tom also must deal with his teen daughters’ embarrassment at his wife’s unplanned pregnancy, and Max must overcome his jealousy of his friend Clare’s handsome overnight guest. A reassessment of everyone’s alibi resolves matters, but not before more mayhem sets Max up for convalescent leave.
Less fun than an hour-long bagpipe recital, and no more serious competition to Lee Childs’ military police stories than Indian Summer (2011) or its ilk.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-78029-8069-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
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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