A former Hollywood business reporter for the New York Times (On the Road to Tara, 1996, etc.) debuts in fiction with this neatly restrained California suspenser. In Sherwood, eight-year-old David Greene deliberately upsets his divorced mother, Drew, calls his younger brother Kiley ``suckdick,'' gets sent to his bedroom—and decides to run away. At a mall where he buys baseball trading cards, David, as he's beginning to reconsider, is induced to accept a ride with Denver, a stranger, who abducts him instead of taking him home—and then starts brainwashing David into becoming ``Andy Ellis.'' Harmetz's procedural follows the cops' fruitless but necessary police work, Drew's stages of anxiety that lead to action, Denver's modus operandi, and the outward personality changes in David. The Sherwood police too readily assume that David has been killed, going so far, on very slender evidence, as to charge someone with his murder. Denver, meanwhile, is a master of child psychology, clearly having brainwashed many young boys into affection for him (``Yes, Daddy''). David, however, has a 168 IQ and secretly retains his real identity. Scenes alternate as Drew gradually draws a local detective, uncomfortable with the so-called resolution of the case, into the search, and as Denver and David move from motel to motel, hanging out at trading-card stores. Finally, the boy gets the idea of leaving trading cards of players named ``David'' as clues at various places, even though Denver keeps a very close eye on him. At first, Denver's a good daddy, however twistedly he tries to seduce David's affections. And since David hasn't truly vanished off the face of the earth, the climax is a foregone conclusion. Believable, well-weighted characters and dialogue, without really transcending genre status. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 11, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-83617-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
APPRECIATIONS
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
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