Catnip for conspiracy theorists and fans of fast-paced thrillers.
Murder by jungle lion gets this CIA–laced story off to a rousing start.
In Paper’s (Perfect, 2010, etc.) debut novel, attorney Jeff Roberts reads a disturbing letter written by his father before his death. Soon Jeff believes that his phone is tapped and that he is being watched. Frightened, he decides to take a long vacation in Africa with girlfriend Nicole Landow, but their photographic safari ends when Jeff has a deadly encounter with a lion. After his death, which may have involved criminal activity, Jeff’s sister Kelly receives their dad’s unsettling letter. In his dispatch, Ted Roberts admits that when he was a White House CIA case officer in the 1960s, he played a part in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The letter includes coded information to be directed to the JFK Assassination Records Review Board. Kelly, dumbfounded by her father’s confession, shares the letter with Senate staffer and Navy SEAL Jim Roth, Jeff’s best friend. Horrifying as its contents are, the letter itself is bad juju. Almost anyone reading it—Jim and Kelly included—soon encounters dangerous situations, and some who are shown the missive even end up dead. In fact, CIA Director Kay Brownstein suggests Kelly leave well enough alone to avoid taking “deadly risks” (but of course, she doesn’t listen). As conspiracy theories go, Paper, a Washington, D.C., attorney, offers an intriguing one that links top-level U.S. officials to the assassination. Dialogue and pacing are superb, and the chapter in which the safari tour company is sued in court is authoritatively well-written. But the use of italic type for large sections of text is daunting; italics are used for revealing past events, characters’ memories, and the contents of letters. Regarding the last, Kelly takes to writing to her dead father, which seems an inelegant way of providing exposition. It’s also almost comical that nearly every time someone sits on a chair or couch, it is made of leather. In addition, characters far too frequently nurse, swig, sip, or take long swallows of beer or wine.
Catnip for conspiracy theorists and fans of fast-paced thrillers.Pub Date: July 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-62147-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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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