Very much an insider’s story: a fictionalized rehash of Gotham gossip that most New Yorkers have tired of—and few...
A Borscht Belt version of The Bonfire of the Vanities, in which Roiphe (Married, 2002, etc.) follows the travails of a New York mayor whose city is coming apart at the seams.
Nobody expected much of Mel Rosenberg. They never expected him to become the mayor of New York in the first place, and after he pulls off the election, they don’t really know what he’s planning to do. Mel concentrates at first on the city’s schools, but the shadow of terrorism is soon cast when a string of inexplicable deaths take place. Mel’s daughter Ina, a biologist at the Department of Health, discovers that the deaths are the result of pizza that’s been laced with large quantities of psychotropic drugs (of the sort typically given to lunatics at outpatient clinics). The poison is later traced to Starbucks, and it soon becomes clear that a well-coordinated effort is at play. The mayor enlists the aid of Detective Loew, a cop descended from the legendary Rabbi Loew of Prague, to find out who’s responsible. But, New York being New York, there’s no way the investigation can proceed without political distractions. The Reverend Benjy Crick, a Harlem demagogue, spreads rumors that a (nonexistent) vaccine is being hoarded by Jews and administered in the basements of synagogues. And the mayor’s close friend (and Parking Commissioner) Neil Maguire is soon embroiled in a scandal regarding embezzled funds. (Maguire also has an insane son named Kevin who receives psychotropic drugs as an outpatient.) And there are smaller crises, as well, involving Mel’s social-climbing son Jacob (who wants to get his kids into a tony private school) and Ina (whose Russian brother-in-law Leonid turns out to have some shady connections). New York is ungovernable at the best of times—but now it looks as if it’ll become uninhabitable as well. Can Mel save the city?
Very much an insider’s story: a fictionalized rehash of Gotham gossip that most New Yorkers have tired of—and few out-of-towners will get.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-4000-4945-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Shaye Areheart/Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
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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