English Wall debuts with an ambitiously twisty intellectual adventure especially good for those smitten by—and maybe versed in—the traditions of decadence in art and poetry rooted in the end of the last century. Life isn—t so happy for Tom Lynch after his British father is lost in the 1937 burning of the Hindenburg, especially when his New Jersey mother—vain, shallow, resentful’so much prefers her new boyfriend over her son. But right after WWII, Tom finds himself sent off to prep school in England, where he’s virtually adopted by the school’s fiercely principled (and fiercely Catholic) head, Patrick Grimshaw. Grimshaw introduces Catholic Tom to the long, rancorous, often sectarian history of the Yorkshire moors—and introduces him to something more as well by giving him a copy of Paradise Lost created and illustrated by the artist Alfred Delaquay. Delaquay, a mix of Baudelaire in the depraved and Blake in the visionary, issued his illustrated works in editions of single copies as a protest, in part, against modern philistinism and lack of high principle; and now just to receive one of them—the Dante, Milton, or Blake—requires becoming a member of the secret Delaquay Society and upholding its truths forever, including the vow never ever to gain a penny from Delaquay. When Tom goes to Oxford, though, to study art, his own spiral into drink and compromise doesn—t take long—nor does his expulsion from the Society, once he breaks the code by paying cash—1,000 lbs.—for the Delaquay Baudelaire. Nothing now will keep him—not even the love of piercingly brilliant, brave, beautiful Rachel Fein, lecturer at Oxford—from falling further into depravity in London, even his becoming, in cahoots with a truly amoral and wonderfully limned gallery owner, the producer himself of dozens of fake Delaquays. What awaits tormented Tom in the end, if heavier in plot than in psychology, will displease only few. Profundities—real ones’survive felicitously and well inside an often sordid tale of mystery and high squalor.
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-609-60158-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
A suspenseful tale of hypocrisy, greed, and cunning finally overcome by social conscience.
A pair of Regency sleuths take on a miscarriage of justice in the past that leads to murders in the present.
Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, despises injustice in every form, and his wife, Hero, is a committed reformer even though her father, Lord Jarvis, is cousin to the Prince Regent and a major power behind the throne (Who Slays the Wicked, 2019, etc.). Shortly after Hero spots a child watching their house, Devlin’s valet, Jules Calhoun, goes out and returns with news that someone he knows has been murdered. Nicholas Hayes, youngest son of the late Earl of Seaforth, was convicted of murder, sent to Australia, and thought to have died. But now he’s returned with Ji, a child he’s brought from China, only to be stabbed to death with a sickle in Pennington’s Tea Gardens. Why would Hayes risk his life to return to England, where he would be hanged if caught? The question plagues Devlin as he reconsiders the evidence that led to the conviction of Hayes. He revisits the scandal that was hushed up back when Hayes was accused of kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy man and shooting to death a married woman on whom he’d reportedly set his eye. The other suspects, all wealthy and well-connected, include Hayes’ cousin Ethan, who’s succeeded to the title since Hayes' two older brothers died before their father, and the Comte de Compans, whose wife he was convicted of killing. The more he learns of Hayes, the more Devlin is convinced he was an innocent man who took the blame for things he never did, including kidnapping Theo Brownbeck’s daughter, Katherine, with whom he was actually eloping and whom Brownbeck immediately married off to Sir Lindsey Forbes, a power in the East India Company. Hayes’ murder is followed by the deaths of several of his enemies. If Hayes were alive, Devlin would suspect him; since he’s not, Devlin and Hero risk their lives following clues no one wants to see uncovered.
A suspenseful tale of hypocrisy, greed, and cunning finally overcome by social conscience.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-399-58568-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
No more meeting-cute for romancer Hoag. Here, couples bond over body bags as the author turns her deft hand to a grisly crime thriller, skillfully constructed if less than completely page- turning. In Night Sins (1995), the first of Hoag's two-part combo, hard-nosed agent Megan O'Malley came to rural Deer Lake, Minnesota, fell in love with hard-nosed police chief Mitch Holt, and together with him tracked down Garrett Wright, the evil genius who kidnapped eight-year-old Josh Kirkwood and then beat up Megan, breaking nearly every bone in her hand—at least twice. This time, hard-nosed prosecutor Ellen North, who left the Twin Cities to get away from big-city violence, wants to rescue Josh and prosecute Wright to the full extent of the law. Complicating her case, though, is, first, handsome southerner Jay Butler Brooks, a millionaire author of true-crime novels whose face has been on the cover of People and whose sexy, smoky drawl insinuates itself under Ellen's tough exterior. (Brooks himself has come to Deer Lake to escape his own personal devils and to cash in on a great story, but he'll stay to be redeemed by Ellen's courage and dedication.) The second complication is young Josh himself, who's returned but is too traumatized to testify. Third is Wright's greasy big-time defense attorney, Tony Costello, who used to be Ellen's lover before he betrayed her. Fourth, no one believes that mild-mannered Professor Wright, an acknowledged community good-guy, could have done such a terrible thing. And, finally, someone keeps littering the icy Minnesota landscape with other bodies, including one of another kidnapped boy. After a lot of gut-wrenching dedication by Ellen, Jay, Megan, and Mitch, there's a bloody if positive resolution and both couples limp off into the sunset. This time out, Hoag abandons some of her outrageous romantic style to investigate more serious moral issues. Worthy, but much less fun.
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-553-09959-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
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