by Ice-T Mal Radcliff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011
Ice-T, rapper and one of the stars of Law and Order: SVU, tries his hand at crime fiction, with the help of co-writer Radcliff.
Marcus “Crush” Casey is paroled from Attica after serving 20 years on charges related to his leading the Vicetown Kings, a New York City gang. Gulliver Rono, his chief lieutenant, betrayed him to the authorities to take over leadership of the Kings. Now Crush wants revenge, but he’s been “schooled” in prison by the legendary “Mack D,” an autodidact intellectual. From Mack, he has soaked up the wisdom of nearly every deep thinker from Aristotle to Sun Tzu. Now Crush has contrived an elaborate plot to take vengeance on Rono and regain leadership of the Kings. Crush also wants to make the gang into something more than a rough bunch of dope “slangers.” Crush is intelligent and ruthless, but not a particularly likable protagonist, and the authors never make clear whether Crush intends to move the Kings into legitimate activities. Most of the action spins around the revenge quest against Rono and the co-opting of both the city’s prominent Hispanic gang, the Blood Devils, and its remorseless Asian gang, the Black Lotuses, a group involved in the sex-slave business. Crush may be down with supplying drugs, but he cannot stomach the brutal abuse of young girls. As Crush’s campaign moves toward its conclusion, readers learn there is more than one "playa" seeking his own brand of justice and more than one schemer pulling stings. While this vengeance tale is sometimes plagued by overly clichéd writing, the use of gangster slang lends an air of believability. It is, however, a relatively slow-moving crime caper, with much rationalization and philosophical musings apparently meant to add gravitas.
The open-ended conclusion suggests Crush may appear again. The snipers, flash grenades and car chases suggest Ice-T is readying a screen treatment.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2513-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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