Expertly judged writing, thoughtful observations, warm and likable characters: Siegel’s third thriller is a promising start,...
Engaging legal-suspenser about a sheriff’s detective and a case too troubling to call.
Lines of tension emerge at once as Los Angeles Times reporter Siegel (Actual Innocence, 1999, etc.) brings a slate of sharply etched characters onto the scene of a housefire in the mid-California coastal village of La Graciosa. Detective Doug Bard clearly riles Sheriff Howie Dixon, and Bard finds DA Angela Stark moves too quickly to judgment. Along with newspaper editor Jimmy O’Connor, whose presence also irks Dixon, they investigate the fire that took the life of genial Ollie Murta and one of his piano students, 11-year-old Merilee Cooper. Accidental death, Stark insists, with Dixon quickly lining up in agreement. The scrupulous and sensitive Bard disagrees: Clues suggest foul play. Before long, responding to Bard’s insistent prodding, Stark reverses her ruling and has crotchety Jed Jeremiah arrested for the crime. Still, Bard isn’t satisfied, finding the county’s case against Jeremiah too pat. When Stark and Dixon have the irrepressible Bard taken off the case, the detective goes it alone, with some investigative assistance from editor O’Connor. The involvement in the matter of developers who may transform the charmingly authentic village into another town of beige malls and condos becomes apparent. Pretty clear, too, is the perpetrator of the crime. The suspense, then, emerges from Bard’s need to uncover the evidence that nails his suspect before jurors convict Jeremiah in a swiftly moving trial. Troubling Bard is a possible link between his ex-wife Sasha and the developers. Indeed, the case is driven by the characters’ personal connections to it, by their past histories—by the lines of defense they construct for their actions. Justice becomes not an abstract issue, but a force buffeted by the emotions and ambitions of fallible men and women.
Expertly judged writing, thoughtful observations, warm and likable characters: Siegel’s third thriller is a promising start, perhaps, to a new series.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-43821-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
