Standup comic, playwright, and novelist Elton (Popcorn, 1997) comes up with too little that’s new to avoid the soporific in this account of lost love rekindled—to no good—among the back alleys of modern London. Polly Slade is one of those left-wing busybodies who can never be persuaded to leave bad enough alone. A social worker at the Office of Equal Opportunity, she evaluates discrimination cases all day long and presses the suits of those who—ve been unfairly passed over for housing or promotion. And what thanks does she get for her trouble? Precious little, unless you count the deranged stalker who fell in love with her and now leaves obscene messages in her voice-mail every night. It’s understandable, then, that Polly is less than thrilled to hear her phone ring one evening near midnight, though it turns out—for once—that her fears were mislaid: The caller isn—t Peter (her stalker) but Jack Kent, an old flame from the early 1980s. Jack was a US Army captain, then based at Greenham Common, and Polly was living in the lesbian commune formed nearby to protest NATO’s nuclear arsenal. They made an odd pair in those days, but managed to fall in love despite it. Eventually, however, Jack abruptly broke things off, fearful that an association with a declared leftist would blight his career. Now, he’s risen to the very top and, as a general, needn—t worry about a thing. So he calls Polly to rekindle the flame. Can he? Before that question can be answered, he finds himself enmeshed in a weird threesome with Polly and Peter (who by now is even more demented and violent). Maybe Jack can save Polly from more than loneliness. Or maybe he can make a bad situation even worse. An anti-fairy tale sadly lacking the wit or originality to lift it past the middle grade.
Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-33455-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
None of these minor complications, though, are enough to raise Virgil’s sixth (Shock Wave, 2011, etc.) much above the level...
Virgil Flowers and the forces of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension battle trigger-happy Bare County Sheriff Lewis Duke in pursuit of a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.
Tom McCall and Becky Welsh think that Jimmy Sharp has led them to Dr. John O’Leary’s home to relieve Marsha O’Leary of a diamond necklace she recently showed off around town. No sooner have they broken in, however, than Jimmy shoots the O’Learys’ oldest daughter, Agatha Murphy, without getting the necklace. In their haste to exit, Jimmy shoots Emmett Williams for his brother-in-law’s Dodge Charger, and their murder spree has begun. First they clear the decks by killing Jimmy’s father and Becky’s parents; then they murder a McDonald’s owner and his wife for some traveling money; then, when a bank robbery goes bad, they kill a Bare County deputy. Called in to the first murder scene, Virgil alertly realizes that Jimmy aimed for the one and only O’Leary window he could easily get through and wonders if Agatha’s murder was something other than a panicky reaction—something like a murder-for-hire arranged by Agatha’s estranged husband, smarmy insurance salesman Dick Murphy. As Virgil, who wants to talk the killers in, tilts with Duke, who wants to shoot them down on sight, Sandford explores the unstable dynamics among the three fugitives and raises questions about how any of the easily identified culprits can ever be brought to justice.
None of these minor complications, though, are enough to raise Virgil’s sixth (Shock Wave, 2011, etc.) much above the level of a highly competent but routine manhunt.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15770-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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