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METH FOR LESS

AN AMBROSE STRYKER ADVENTURE

A whirlwind of drugs, derelicts and diabolical melodrama.

A big-hearted Nebraskan and his close friend wade through a town corrupted by meth-addicted crazies.

Prell (Ka-Ching: The Repository of Universal Wisdoms, 2007), a former award-winning, nationally syndicated radio journalist, sets his murder mystery in Lincoln, Neb., a town he calls “a cesspool of crime and depravity.” The description seems apt as a deadly methamphetamine lab explosion blows “tweaker” Roy Swartz Jr.’s body into thin air. It’s a common local occurrence to Ambrose Stryker, a disfigured Iraq War veteran and corn farmer, who, together with best buddy “Stub” Stubinskie, Stryker dreams of ridding the town of this epidemic. Meanwhile, dopey speed-freak miscreants Alphonse “Big A” Beemer and Gilmore “Happy” Gilruth hatch a plan to rob a bank, but end up in jail, only to make bigger plans to transport legal meth-producing chemicals out of town. Stryker, who continues to be haunted by his harsh time in the war, becomes more annoyed than concerned about Ashed “Barry” McFarland, a shifty Iraqi taxi driver he’d met abroad and has now shows up in Polk County unannounced and desperate, “much like a virus that results in a bad cold.” McFarland gets arrested after inadvertently driving Big A and Happy around and good guy Stryker retains lusty attorney Lara Lynn Lundstrom to assist, but she’s got more than a few secrets to hide. Prell keeps the action moving and adds more shady characters to the mix, such as Reno-based drug dealer Bobette “Footsie” Kravitz and Ernst Leidke, an aging hustler servicing Lincoln’s older female demographic. The body count rises as Barry, now a key witness to the drug action, fears for his life. It’s up to Stryker and Stub to ferret out the dealers from the do-gooders and snare a few hot dates for themselves along the way. Incorporating DNA battles, lesbian drug dealers, grave-robbed bodies and explosions galore, Prell delivers humor-infused tension through an unwieldy assortment of ragtag, potty-mouthed characters. Stryker makes for a compelling protagonist; can a sequel be far behind?

A whirlwind of drugs, derelicts and diabolical melodrama.

Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2011

ISBN: 978-0984558605

Page Count: 286

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: March 24, 2011

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MAGIC HOUR

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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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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