Politicians, thugs, and the gentry tangle in the beautiful horse-country of the Old Dominion. Good bloodlines prove their worth in a civilized and literate thriller by the author of Looker, Blood of the Czars, and Dance on a Sinking Ship. Captain David Showers USAR, is perhaps the best amateur steeplechase rider in the Virginia hunt country. He is, in addition, the near-penniless owner of a horseless family farm; a self-effacing State Department functionary; and, to the exasperation of his lavishly loose ex-wife and his many horse- loving friends, unshakably honorable. Captain Showers's honor is put to the test when he is given a horse by an exceptionally pretty actress as a reward for conspicuous gallantry on the racecourse. The horse is one David wants very much, a descendant of his family's own line of champions. Or is it? The beast is strangely short in the tooth for its age, and it's wearing one stocking too many. When he digs into the matter, David learns that he has a rival for the horse's affections. There is a Baltimore billionaire who would pay anything to get his hands on it. The billionaire is the backer and best friend of the actress's estranged father, an up-the-hard-way politician who is now the President's chief of staff. When David won't sell, the billionaire starts to call in his political chits, and bullets start flying around the serene countryside. It's not enough that David is proving difficult about the mysterious animal, he's also become awkwardly involved with the highest levels of diplomacy. Smooth, intelligent, and genteelly exciting. Upstairs, Downstairs in the saddle.
Pub Date: June 12, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-07859-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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