Hyde (China Lake, 1992; The Red Fox, 1985) returns in top form with an intricately woven tale of love, murder, and family set in the new Asia. Nick Lamp, a Taiwan businessman, goes to meet local Mafioso Cao Dai, but finds him dead. Fearing the authoritarian methods of the Taiwanese police, Nick runs from the scene. He soon discovers a prostitute who claims to have been in Cao Dai's apartment when he was killed, though she has no explanation for the murder itself. When the prostitute meets a violent end, the police question Nick; he soon believes that they're setting him up to be the patsy for Cao Dai's slaying. Afraid of both the police and Cao Dai's sons, Nick escapes from Taiwan, figuring the only way to clear himself is to find Cao Dai's killer. His search takes him to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and deep into mainland China, his only clues a counterfeit copy of Asiaweek and an old photograph showing Cao Dai and Nick's father with a group of Chinese actresses. Hyde masterfully connects Cao Dai's murder to political intrigues inside China, including a failed coup from the past, and to present-day missile technology. Throughout, Nick is encumbered by his racial heritage; the son of a Chinese man and an American woman, he often feels like ``a banana...yellow on the outside, white on the inside.'' He's also troubled by his relationship with Laurie, an American who seems more Chinese than he does. His father's legacy becomes a burden when Nick unearths a number of the dead man's indiscretions. Hyde's seamless narrative keeps readers close to Nick every mental and physical step of the way in a story that's as much a study of contemporary Chinese culture as it is a first-class thriller. Intelligent, literate, and unsentimental.
Pub Date: July 6, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-44039-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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