A highly satisfying story of family loyalty, persistence, courage, and crime.
A businessman resists the mob in a novel that spans most of the 20th century.
In 1915, Manhattan’s Lower East Side is a tough place for 12-year-old Morris Rabishevsky and his siblings to grow up. He takes a job sweeping floors at the Majestic Garment Company, but his drive and ambition are obvious. The owner suggests he go by Morris Raab—because Rabishevsky is “a mouthful for some people here”—and he and his mother agree. But street punks try to shake him down on payday, and he has to fight tough guy Louis Buchalter to keep his money. Morris has “never backed down from anything” and is much tougher than his brothers, Sol and Harold. Every character’s personal qualities factor strongly in this story. Morris’ drive and intelligence lead to his running Majestic at age 20 when the owner retires. Later, he and Sol start their own garment manufacturer, Raab Brothers. Morris’ brash approach wins business with a big chain store, and the company grows. Sol knows how to keep the books but doesn’t know how to sell. Their other brother, Harold, is a likable screw-up who hangs out with the wrong crowd, even mobsters, and might well ruin what becomes the family business. Louis Buchalter grows up to be a cutthroat mobster, taking over garment unions and running Murder Incorporated. The mob has a way of breaking down resistance to the unions: They throw a man out an eighth-floor window, splash an owner with sulfuric acid, destroy his inventory. Of course, the Raab Brothers’ success attracts Buchalter’s attention, and the resulting conflict is one of life and death. New York Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey seeks Morris’ cooperation in destroying the mob, but Morris and his business might perish in the process. At a funeral, a rabbi asks, “What does it mean to be a good man?” If it means standing up to evil, then Morris Raab qualifies.
A highly satisfying story of family loyalty, persistence, courage, and crime.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-17998-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Koontz widens his canvas dramatically while dimming the hard brilliance common to his shorter winners:1995’s taut masterpiece, Intensity, and 1998’s moon-drenched midsummer nightmare, Seize the Night. This time the author takes up mind control, wiring his tale into the brainwashing epics The Manchurian Candidate and last spring’s film The Matrix. The laser-beam brightness of his earlier bestsellers fades, however, as he stuffs each scene with draining chitchat and extra plotting that seldom rings with novelty. Martine “Martie” Rhodes, a video-game designer, has developed a rare mental disorder: autophobia, fear of oneself. Meanwhile, her husband Dusty’s young half-brother, Skeet Caulfield, has decided to jump off the roof of a building the two men are repairing—because Skeet has seen the Angel of the next world, who has revealed that things are pretty wonderful there, and he wants to come on over. Martie’s best friend, real-estate agent Susan Jagger, is newly coping with agoraphobia, fear of the outdoors. What’s more, Susan knows she’s being visited and raped at night by her separated husband, Eric, although all her doors and windows are locked. She can’t remember these rapes, but her panties are stained with semen. So when she sets up a camcorder to record her sleeping hours, she gets a huge surprise after viewing the tape. How these mental and physical events have come about—ditto the psychiatric background of the Keanuphobe millionairess who shows up (yes! she fears Keanu Reeves)—has something to do with the ladies’ psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Ahriman, the son of a famous dead movie director whose eyes the doctor keeps in a bottle of formaldehyde and studies, in hopes of siphoning off Dad’s inspiration. Although the whole story could have been told to better effect in 300 pages, Koontz deftly sidesteps clichÇs of expression while nonetheless applying an air pump to the suspense: an MO that keeps his yearly 17-million book sales afloat.
Pub Date: Dec. 28, 1999
ISBN: 0-553-10666-X
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Utter non-scents.
Die-hard Yankee candle maker Stella Wright (Murder’s No Votive Confidence, 2018) gets caught up in a trans-Atlantic murder plot.
Stella thoroughly enjoys her trip to Paris even though her mother, perfume expert Millie Wright, who’s scheduled to speak on a panel entitled “The Art of Scent Extractions” at the World Perfumery Conference, gets preempted by a murder. Sadly, once they’re back home in Nantucket, things get even weirder. Stella receives an anonymous note threatening her mom if Stella doesn’t turn over a secret formula hidden in Millie’s bag. Her mom can’t help because she’s in the hospital courtesy of an overenthusiastic attempt by Stella’s cat, Tinker, to befriend her. While trespassing on a suspicious sailboat, Stella meets U.S. Agent Sarah Hill, who warns her that well-known anarchist Rex Laruam plans to disrupt the upcoming Peace Jubilee using a stolen formula he secreted in Millie’s bag after he stabbed the agent guarding it back in Paris. Ignoring the advice of her friend Andy Southerland, a Nantucket cop, to leave detection to the professionals, Stella tries to unmask the elusive Laruam. As she spies on a bevy of unlikely suspects, the plot spirals further and further out of control: There’s a Canadian couple staying at an Airbnb run by Stella’s cousin Chris who whisper sweet but suspicious nothings in the dark, a shovel-wielding schoolmarm, a gang of old geezers who have a collective crush on Millie, a surprise 30th-birthday party planned by Stella’s beau, Peter Bailey, and an even more surprising impromptu airplane ride.
Utter non-scents.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2141-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
