A feverishly readable psychological noir.
A fugitive embezzler in need of a fresh start gambles on assuming the identity of a presumed off-the-grid video game maven.
For lovers of crime fiction, there can be no more seductive catnip than a caper about a compromised antihero desperate to change his life for the better, the unhappily married femme fatale who is going to make that exceedingly difficult, a detective who is suspicious of both of them, and a rising body count. The book’s title alone evokes distinctive film noirs past like Johnny Allegro, Johnny Eager, and Johnny O’Clock. But this is no warmed-over pastiche. Tom Gantry is the kind of hard-luck case for whom “every place I walk into lately turns out to be the wrong place.” But then the thief meets John Manis, a reclusive former software god to whom Gantry bears an uncanny resemblance. One sailboat “accident” later and Gantry gets the opportunity for a second chance with Manis’ passport, wealth, and freedom. After a “slow westward drift through the casinos of New Orleans and Las Vegas,” Gantry buys a young entrepreneur’s business in a Napa Valley town and sets himself up as the Computer Kid, servicing the tech needs of the affluent residents. Two things muck up the works: Manis’ unceasing voice in his head (“What are you up to this time? Even I don’t get it”) and Marilyn Dupree, whose husband treats her cruelly. When Gantry meets the ravishing Dupree, “the fuse” is lit. Their passionate affair does not go unnoticed by Lou Eisenfall, a local cop, especially when the story takes some deadly turns. The novel’s central conceit does strain credulity: Certainly the re-emergence of a long-missing person of Manis’ stature would go viral and unmask the imposter. But all is forgiven when Diamond (Impala, 2016, etc.) nails an evocative, nihilistic, hard-boiled style that fans of Jim Thompson and the like will admire (“She saw something in me and I saw something in her, and whether or not it was something good, something was better than nothing”). A screen adaptation would be manna for character actors portraying Gantry’s intriguing customers (how about Blythe Danner as the Lemonade Lady?).
A feverishly readable psychological noir.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9963507-7-8
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Stolen Time Press
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2019
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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