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REFLECTIONS IN RED

Name: REFLECTIONS IN RED
Author: Alvin Wander
ISBN: 978-1-64438-728-3

by Alvin Wander ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 2019

A clichéd, overstuffed mystery that doesn’t use its protagonist to good advantage.

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In Wander’s (Deadly Ambitions, 2013, etc.) series entry, retired Israeli spy David Korman looks into seemingly unrelated and increasingly dangerous criminal cases.

“Answer me this, Dopey, why do I put up with you?” asks Dianne, the long-suffering wife of the philandering Korman. “Because I always come home with a good story,” he replies. “This one is probably the best in a long time.” It’s certainly the busiest. It begins with a frantic call from Cindy, Korman’s former lover, who’s concerned that her estranged brother, a financial advisor who has scammed the wrong people, has gone missing. Next, Korman’s friend Bruno Jayson is working a multibillion-dollar deal involving a game-changing pharmaceutical. However, Korman wonders if this deal is on the level. Meanwhile, Carter Briggs, a “cracker-jack financial deal maker” and another of Bruno’s former acquaintances, reappears after more than a 10-year absence—just after six random women have been found strangled; all but one had a red ribbon meticulously tied around her neck, earning the perpetrator an obvious nickname: “the red-ribbon serial killer.” Readers may immediately suspect Carter of the crime, particularly as Wander does little to discourage this (“Carter felt his stomach tighten as he watched a news team at the murder scene putting together the story”). Although this book takes place in the present, the dialogue wouldn’t pass muster in a 1940s B-movie (“What’s with you, doll”). Still, occasional lines achieve an appealing, hard-boiled style: “If I were him, I would not buy any long-playing records.” On the other hand, “Put me to bed” isn’t something that most people say in the heat of passion. Korman is said to possess “a great mind” and the ability to recognize “things that even the authorities miss,” but readers won’t find him to be very impressive here; for instance, he resolves Cindy’s case by simply telling her to pay off her brother’s victims. The resolution of the red-ribbon serial-killer investigation is particularly anticlimactic.

A clichéd, overstuffed mystery that doesn’t use its protagonist to good advantage.

Pub Date: May 15, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-64438-728-3

Page Count: 248

Publisher: Booklocker.com

Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.