A San Francisco reporter might lose more than her job when her editor forces her to investigate the supposed suicides of two New York breeders of prizewinning dairy cattle.
In this debut novel, Cora Brooks is a veteran on the police beat for the San Francisco Standard. She is 45 and suffering the indignities of “an ungrateful son, a husband who’d found a younger woman, a body run amok,” not to mention an unsympathetic editor who seems bent on replacing her with an Eve Carrington–like rival reporter. Despite her protests, Brooks is dispatched to New York on the whim of her publisher to follow up on a New York Times story about two dead men, found in separate locations. One of them, Sean O’Brien, was the publisher’s friend. The other was Franklin Santerra, a dairyman who, over a four-month period, sold O’Brien three highly insured prize cows, each of which died within four weeks of the transaction. Over the course of a fraud investigation, O’Brien ingested strychnine, and Santerra, four days later, blew his head off with a shotgun. Brooks has her suspicions, not about the case, but concerning the editor’s motivation for sending her: “You think I’ll screw up so you can fire me. Save one layoff.” The seasoned reporter does not anticipate becoming part of the story as she uncovers links to her own haunted past and seeks closure to the mystery of the mother who abandoned her. The book alternates chapters Gone Girl–style, a device that works intermittently. At one point, Brooks is the focus of five consecutive chapters. Others are devoted to Abby, a woman at the turn of the century who becomes involved with an O’Brien ancestor; State Police Maj. Del Somer, who was once married to O’Brien’s widow; and Alice, Brooks’ elusive mother. Da Vigo has a strong sense of place and writes authentically about a profession under siege by corporate takeovers. And in Brooks, she has created a flawed but capable and empathetic character. “You’re a pisser, aren’t you?” Somer asks at one point. “Only in my better moments,” she replies.
Stop the presses! An appealing crime-fiction heroine is born.
Pub Date: April 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9745722-1-5
Page Count: 428
Publisher: Quill Driver Press
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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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