The doyen of American jockeys, following in Dick Francis's hoofprints for perhaps the first time ever, turns to fiction with this thriller about—what else?—a retired jockey's adventures in the post-riding world. Seven years ago, Raymond Starbuck was the Jockey Club chief steward who barred Coley Killebrew from racing after a track accident that left one rider dead and Francie Dorn, Coley's lover, wealthy and departed from Coley's bed. Now Starbuck, still active on the racing scene, wants Coley to go undercover in order to prevent high-rolling businessman Remy Courville and his Southern Boy Supplies from taking control of the Santa Rosita racetrack. Starbuck's plan calls for Coley to try fixing the Dixie Derby, at New Orleans's (and Southern Boy's) Magnolia Park, so that Remy's favored horse, Cajun Desire, will lose. It also calls for Starbuck's leggy blond daughter Lea to tip Remy off about the fix and worm her way into Remy's confidence. In return, Starbuck tells Coley, he'll give him $10,000 and Francie Dorn's current address. (He doesn't tell him that his predecessor in New Orleans has just died suspiciously.) No sooner does Coley break through a surrounding cordon of enforcers, money men, and hangers-on to make contact with Remy, than, inspired by the recent rise in mortality rates at Santa Rosita and Magnolia, he changes the plan: He'll go to work for Remy himself and see what information he can nose out- -or steal—about Southern Boy. He doesn't count on tangling with the likes of Romeo Vetticino, Joey Lunchbox, Jerry the Hat, Hurricane Bruce—or his one-time lover, Francie Dorn.... An appealing debut, with lots of thrills and spills, and the climactic hurricane shows just how well Coley can take a damp track—even though, in the end, the legendary Shoe overcrowds his field with characters. Here's hoping he gives Coley another mount soon.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-449-90595-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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