The primal passions erupting in a small New York town depicted here by two-time Edgar winner Klavan (Animal Hour, 1993) gather with the force of a brush fire sweeping through dry grass. They are fueled by rebellion against the corrupt sheriff, Cyrus Doolittle. Doolittle handpicks local pols for top slots. He influences development. He won't talk to the local press except through press releases. He is opposed only by a plain middle-aged journalist, Sally Dawes, bureau chief of the Daily Champion, who has been Doolittle's nemesis for two decades ever since he killed his best friend and benefited from the murder of a seven-year-old girl. When the body of a drug-dabbling real estate lawyer floats up in the Hudson, Sally and her green new reporter, the patrician Henry Merriwether, begin to dig for fresh dirt. They also begin an affair, which threatens not only Henry's marriage (to a black woman) but also Sally's pristine reputation. Meanwhile, the aptly named Ernie Rumplemeyer, Sally's most zealous newsie, manages to get an interview with Doolittle's teenaged daughter—who has been confined to a mental institution (presided over by a doctor in the palm of Doolittle's hand) after threatening to expose Big Daddy's role in the killing of her punk boyfriend. What elevates Corruption above formula suspense is Klavan's ability to get into the heads of diverse characters, ranging from the crude Doolittle (given to such thoughts as ``I'll squeeze his balls till his eyes fucking explode'') to the idealistic Merriwether. Doolittle's thuggish undersheriff from the Bronx, Benoit, comes across as an almost cartoonish embodiment of venality and violence, but others, particularly Rumplemeyer, evoke pity and terror. A suspenseful, gritty look at what crawls under the apparently innocent surface of a small American town.
Pub Date: May 25, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11816-X
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
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