An engaging thriller about dogfighting that features two appealing heroines.
The Special Crimes Team must crack a new case that soon leads to murder in this fifth installment of a series.
Walksfar (Beyond the Silence, 2016, etc.) continues chronicling the adventures of the Special Crimes Team through the story of heroine Sgt. Nita Slowater. In the previous novel in the series, Nita and her partner, intrepid reporter Dawn Samira, survived a deadly arson attack on their home in Seattle. Now, the two have moved back into their repaired house, and Nita and the other members of the crime team take on a new case when a teenage informant stumbles on a dogfighting ring. Dawn, who works for the Seattle Times, assembles a group of street teens to try to investigate the ring (“Those kids can go places and they know people that are off limits to any cop, including you, Nita”). Meanwhile, Nita and the others on her team, including her boss, Lt. Michael Williams, and computer guru Ronald Arneau, zero in on the perpetrators, who may be involved in other criminal activities, including drug trafficking and gambling. But the case gets deadlier when people who owned or purchased fighting dogs suddenly start turning up dead. When team members find themselves in danger, Nita, Dawn, and the rest of the gang must work fast to save their own lives. Walksfar has molded an enjoyable narrative here (if anything that focuses on the gruesome crime of dogfighting can be pleasurable). She crafts a story that is complicated without being incoherent, and she peppers the tale with superb, specific details about Seattle. She also focuses the novel on fully fleshed-out, complex characters. Dawn and Nita especially are captivating heroines; as a three-dimensional couple, with individual flaws but ultimately a deep love for each other, they are refreshingly realistic and give the narrative emotional substance. Not all the characters are so fully drawn, especially when it comes to the bad guys; there are too many villains who walk around spouting lines like “What the hell do you want? This is private property.” The novel also draws on elements of the previous books in the series; there are a few subplots, such as Nita’s wrestling with her Native American heritage, that are more developed in other volumes. Still, readers should be able to savor this tale on its own.
An engaging thriller about dogfighting that features two appealing heroines.Pub Date: April 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5237-5787-9
Page Count: 394
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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