A brisk, winsome caper.
From 100-year-old Hotchner (Hemingway in Love, 2015, etc.), noted biographer of Hemingway, Doris Day, and others, comes this slender, sweet-tempered boy-sleuth tale set in Depression-era St. Louis.
At 12, Aaron Broom is precocious. With his mother interned in a tuberculosis sanitarium and his rent-jumping, electricity-pirating salesman dad just scraping by, he has to be. The novel begins briskly, with Aaron left outside to protect their precious truck from the repo men while his father goes into a jewelry store to ply his company's watches. When his father is buzzed inside with his bulky sample case, Aaron sees a heavyset man scurry in behind him. Then he hears shots and sees the display window shatter and the man flee while stashing his gun in his waistband. Soon Aaron's father is escorted out in handcuffs, and Aaron, by now eavesdropping on the assembled officers, discovers that his dad has been taken in as a material witness and possible accomplice. He will be kept without bail. Aaron, suddenly on his own, soon determines that the only way of getting his father released is to do a bit of "detectifying" and unmask the culprit himself. He begins to investigate the jewelry store's employees, enlisting the aid of a motley group of kids and adults: a newspaper street vendor, an epileptic ex-neighbor girl who lives in a Hooverville near the river, a maritime lawyer, the kindly palooka who manages the building where Aaron and his father have been living. Are there extremely convenient plot twists? Yes. Implausibilities, shortcuts? Fine. Could this all be derided as sepia-toned hokum? Sure. But Hotchner's storytelling is fast-paced, his feel for period detail sure-handed, his vision of humanity-facing-adversity persistently sunny, and his regard for the boy's resourcefulness contagious.
A brisk, winsome caper.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-385-54358-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.
Plenty of gore from days of yore fills the 12th entry in Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom series (War of the Wolf, 2018, etc.).
The pagan warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg narrates his 10th-century adventures, during which he hacks people apart so that kingdoms might be stitched together. He is known to some as the Godless or the Wicked, a reputation he enjoys. Edward, King of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia is gravely ill, and Uhtred pledges an oath to likely heir Æthelstan to kill two rivals, Æthelhelm and “his rotten nephew,” Ælfweard, when the king dies. Uhtred’s wife, Eadith, wants him to break that oath, but he cannot live with the dishonor of being an oathbreaker. The tale seems to begin in the middle, as though the reader had just turned the last page in the 11th book—and yet it stands alone quite well. Uhtred travels the coast and the river Temes in the good ship Spearhafoc, powered by 40 rowers struggling against tides and currents. He and his men fight furious battles, and he lustily impales foes with his favorite sword, Serpent-Breath. “I don’t kill the helpless,” though, which is one of his few limits. So, early in the story, when a man calling himself “God’s chosen one” declares “We were sent to kill you,” readers may chuckle and say yeah, right. But Uhtred faces true challenges such as Waormund, “lord Æthelhelm’s beast.” Immense bloodletting aside, Cornwell paints vivid images of the filth in the Temes and in cities like Lundene. This is mainly manly fare, of course. Few women are active characters. The queen needs rescuing, and “when queens call for help, warriors go to war.” The action is believable if often gruesome and loathsome, and it never lets up for long.
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256321-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.
When Chi Chi Donatelli gave famous crooner Saverio Armandonada a manicure on a 1930s New Jersey beach, little did she know that the swanky singer would change her life.
After his childhood sweetheart married another man, Saverio left the security of his job on the factory line in Detroit, earning his father’s disapproval but opening wide the door to success as a big-band singer. Along his way to stardom, Saverio changed his name to Tony Arma and discovered a talent for romancing—but never marrying—the ladies. But once he meets Chi Chi, his bachelor days are numbered. From a large, boisterous Italian family, Chi Chi is eager to have a life like Tony’s, with the freedom to sing and travel the country. She wants no part of marriage with its shackles. Soon Chi Chi and Tony are touring together, eventually developing a profitable shtick, with Chi Chi writing bestselling songs and Tony serenading them to dreamy audiences. It’s only a matter of time before Tony proposes. After all, unlike his other girls, Chi Chi offers Tony not only beauty and charm, but also the stability of a home. The lovers’ work in the entertainment industry gives way to a marriage blessed with babies yet held apart by war. Once reunited, Chi Chi’s independence and Tony’s philandering further fracture their marriage. But as Tony’s path wends from woman to woman, Chi Chi forges a new life on her own terms. A mistress of the sweeping family saga, bestselling author Trigiani (Kiss Carlo, 2017, etc.) sets Chi Chi and Tony’s lifelong love affair against the grand stage of World War II through the postwar boom years and the women’s liberation movement, tracing a society catching up with Chi Chi’s determination to control her own financial and personal freedom.
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-231925-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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