Rich, stylish, turn-of-the-century vampire spy novel set in England, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, and on the trains tying the le CarrÇ-ish spy networks together: a sequel to Hambly's memorable Those Who Hunt the Night (1988). Hambly at last outdoes early Rice for fine writing while avoiding Rice's light lavender hand. Every page shows immense research and attention to Continental textures of life nearly a century ago as WW I rumbles in the far distance. In the first novel, Hambly showed us Edwardian England though the eyes of ex-spy James Asher and young wife Lydia, and through the undead eyes of London's oldest vampire, the Spanish aristocrat Don Simon Ysidro. That initial installment focused on a monstrous mutant vampire who was killing all the vampires of London and drinking their blood. Now the plot grows into parallel lines, with James and Lydia apart and traveling separately with vampires toward an eventual rejoining. The two plotlines move like moonlit chapters by Sax Rohmer (with vampires replacing Fu Manchu and the Yellow Peril), the story of James chasing vampire spies alternating with episodes from a Louisa May Alcott thriller about Lydia. Vampires, it seems, are as territorial as birds and get highly upset if a London bloodsucker invades the Paris or Vienna feeding grounds and willy- nilly brings on police activity after promiscuously sucking dry improper victims. James discovers that England's enemies have hired vampire double agents, including the Earl of Ernchester, now a vampire, who has left London for the Continent accompanied by top Hungarian vampire Ignace Karolyi, seemingly intent on selling his vampire abilities of getting in and out of places like mist through a keyhole. Lydia, however, discovers that James is in great danger and, protected by Don Ysidro, sets out to save him. The climax: a tragicomic opera among woman-hating, top-lofty Turkish vampires. Pages to read gold-stained by lamplight. (First printing of 50,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-345-38102-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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
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
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