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
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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