A hasty erotic thriller that needs fleshing out.
An enterprising lawyer and his wife set up a blackmail ring on a tropical island known for amorous vacationing.
Tom O’Connor can’t survive much longer in New York City–his business is going under, his credit cards are maxed out and no new accounts are on the horizon. After taking a soul-searching vacation on the island of Bohana and witnessing the sexual spectacle of a native festival, he and his beautiful wife Amy contrive a plan to profile and blackmail wealthy tourists who come to the island for the sex trade. These wealthy men, pillars of the community at home, submit to their most base desires while on Bohana, and Tom is positive he can bilk them in return for staying quiet. Tom and Amy begin an organization devoted to electronically surveilling tourists and training a stable of beautiful native women to seduce the men. After sending the tourists pictures and firsthand accounts of the trysts and threatening to ruin the men’s good names, the O’Connors plan to reap the benefits of their work, receiving hefty bribes. Stepping into their net are Hollywood moviemakers and childhood friends Vic and Larry. Each has ties at home, but reluctantly become involved with island women on the island from the O’Connors’ blackmailing organization. Little does O’Connor know that these men have a history of foiling bigger and stronger opponents, and won’t let a group of criminals hijack their reputations. They hatch a plan to strike back against the blackmailers, employing their wits against the organization’s muscle. Along the way, Vic and Larry must contend with jealous girlfriends, the loss of the island sheriff and the FBI. The action in the plot is unrelenting, but never particularly suspenseful. The timeline of the action is also difficult to follow, with jumps in time that aren’t clearly explained. For an erotic novel, the sex scenes are few and far between, and not expansive enough to engage the reader. The premise of the book is unique, and the characters’ motivation, especially Tom’s desperation, is well-drawn. However, the writing is largely tedious and will have readers looking for a more fulfilling encounter.
A hasty erotic thriller that needs fleshing out.Pub Date: May 10, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4196-9451-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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