In a first US publication for Anglo-Israeli author Louvish, the Intifada, the Mossad, American wacko fundamentalism, the NYPD, ultra-orthodox West Bank settlers, the CIA, rabid supporters of all or some of the above, as well as the mayor of Jerusalem, fill the much too exciting days of an Israeli journalist who would rather hide among the TV listings. Television writer Joe Dekel is at the center of the bizarre chain of events that begins with the introduction in New York of someone who says he is Dekel's ``silencer''—Didi Schaeffer. According to Didi, a silencer's job is to see that dangerously pro-Palestinian writings such as Dekel has been known to dabble in never see the light of day on this side of the Atlantic. Dekel is in town against his will, covering yet another hopeless peace forum when he would rather be playing video and other domestic games back in Jerusalem, where he and his wife are thinking maybe they'll have a baby. But before he leaves Manhattan, Dekel stumbles into a murder scene where the expiring corpse either curses him or slips him some sensational information. Sorting this out will require further adventures and involvement with a 100-year-old American Jewish supporter of rational solutions to irrational Israeli governance, murderous encounters with the real Didi Schaeffer, who's not a bit like the fake Didi on the West Bank, a crippling run-in with a stun grenade, and an endless stream of threatening heavies, all of whom have interests in the occupied territories. There's a thriller plot here, but Louvish's heart is in the wry wrappings, hours of observations on Israeli political and moral life with always a finger to the ribs. Action fanciers will drift off early, humor fanciers a little later, policy wonks will make it to the end.
Pub Date: May 15, 1993
ISBN: 1-56656-116-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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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