Serial-kidnapper psychodrama set in the privileged precincts of the very wealthy, by the ever assured Farris (Dragonfly, 1995, etc.), a master of pitch-perfect dialogue be it backcountry or Manhattan art world. Some suspense novelists, like Farris and Dean Koontz, have such density of knowledge about the physical world that entertaining trash becomes brilliantly real. Photographic sentences dwell on extreme sensations and thoughts, as well as on the obsessive musings of those who know too much about ``the dynamics of hell'' and about the moment when horror overwhelms one and ``images of sublime beauty [become] thorns in the eye, great music discordant, and innocent laughter [raises] blisters on the heart.'' Here, six women, all with singular physical flaws, have disappeared without a trace. All of them knew charismatic, wealthy architect Dix Trevellian, and Coleman Dane of the Justice Department thinks Trevellian has murdered all six, including his own beautiful sister, Felicia Dane, who was partly crippled. Dix, though, has passed a polygraph test. Is the killer then Dix's schizo brother Scott, who carries on imaginary conversations with all of the lost victims? Or perhaps psycho Dempsey Wingo, made murderous with jealousy by his ex-wife, Dix's sister Esther? And what about Esther, the billionaire sister from hell and her semi-incestuous three-way bed frolics with Dix? Dane hires West Point grad, ex-CID, and Military Police officer Sharon Norbeth (daughter of a Medal of Honor winner), now retired on a pension but still a first-class sleuth, to investigate, hoping that her prosthetic hand will lure the kidnapper. Sharon is also a talented if quirky painter, and Dane has a top Manhattan art dealer set up a show for her that will attract the vanisher. Will Sharon wind up sandwiched between Esther and Dix, before disappearing? Like the summer's action flicks: marvelous visuals, little substance.
Pub Date: July 23, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-85375-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997
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
BOOK REVIEW
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