An often riveting tale in which solving a murder helps the protagonist learn more about herself.
An Austin, Texas–based psychologist looks into a childhood friend’s murder and uncovers secrets that could prove fatal in DeShong’s (Too Rich and Too Thin, Not an Autobiography, 2015) thriller.
Jessica LeFave is understandably distraught when cops find her friend, Camilla Cervantes, with a bullet in her head. But she becomes angry when Detective Don Wilder suggests that the murder, staged like a blood sacrifice, ties her friend to a drug cartel. She’s convinced the killing is more personal, so she searches for answers in Mexico City, where Camilla rescued young girls who’d been forced into prostitution. Jessica also hopes to find Diego de la Cruz, Camilla’s ex-husband and the father to their daughter, Ana Teresa. But it turns out that Camilla may have hidden some of her life from Jessica, leading the psychologist to stir up dangerous people. Jessica undoubtedly wants to track down the killer in order to satisfy her sense of justice and to debunk the notion that Camilla was involved in the drug business. But she’s likewise burdened with guilt over never visiting years ago when Camilla was in a mental hospital, and part of her reasoning for locating Diego lies in her own unmistakable infatuation with the “gorgeous” man. Jessica also struggles to come to terms with the troubling memory of her stepdaughter Kelly’s suicide; she repeatedly equates Camilla with Kelly, as they both had bipolar disorder. Despite the driving fact of Camilla’s murder, this novel is less a mystery than it is a tale of Jessica’s self-discovery. DeShong devotes most of the story to her absorbing protagonist, whose first husband was her stepbrother and who lost her second to murder. As an investigator, though, Jessica is lacking; she carries no cellphone (thanks to a “phone phobia”), and uses her lawyer buddy George’s phone to do basic Internet searches or peruse Facebook. However, the story boasts moments of suspense, such as a discovery of a slashed tire that could either be a warning or a threat. It also offers comic relief in the form of Jessica’s attention-hogging dogs, Suzi and Sammie.
An often riveting tale in which solving a murder helps the protagonist learn more about herself.Pub Date: July 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-49212-3
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
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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