Nearly a decade and a half after abducting teenager Lizzy Gardner, her captor is ready to seek revenge on the one who got away, in Ragan’s white-knuckled thriller,
When she was 16-years-old, Lizzy Gardner lied to her parents about spending the night with friends and snuck out with her boyfriend, Jared. When he dropped her off a block from her home, it was just too easy for the kidnapper to switch gears and take Lizzy instead of the Anderson girl. But after two months of torture, including being poisoned and burned, Lizzy escaped. At 30-years-old, she’s now a private investigator who spies on unfaithful spouses and teaches girls how to defend themselves. Jared is now an FBI agent and, after having not spoken to Lizzy since the abduction, he contacts her because the madman who took her is at it again—and he left a personal note for Lizzy with his latest victim. In James Patterson style, Ragan choreographs a tightly woven dance among a large cast who all have a connection to Spiderman, the moniker given to the killer because of his penchant for torturing victims with creepy crawlers. Ragan’s psychopath is on a mission to teach “bad” girls a lesson and punishes them according to their vice. With no shortage of plot swells, Lizzy and Jared, along with Sgt. Jimmy Martin and even Lizzy’s self-defense student, Hayley Hansen, are determined to rescue Spiderman’s latest victim, someone Lizzy would risk her life for. Even the killer’s own sister is looking for him and may hold the clue to his depravity, where slicing a pinky off a victim thrills him. Although the story boasts a couple of oddities, such as why Ragan chose similar names for her characters (Warner, Winters, Walker; Crawford, Crowley) and why nearly every character is on the verge of divorce, or divorced, the masterful storytelling and inventive plot trample these minor inconveniences. Lizzy is Hannibal Lechter’s Clarice, and although parallels to Silence of the Lambs abound, Ragan’s thriller stands on its own. The satisfyingly frightful episode of a calculating cutthroat.
Pub Date: May 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463717094
Page Count: 348
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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