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STALKING HORSE

Name: STALKING HORSE
Author: Bill Shoemaker
ISBN: 0-449-90595-0

by Bill Shoemaker ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1994

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
DARK HORSE
by Bill Shoemaker

- BOOK REVIEW
FIRE HORSE
by Bill Shoemaker

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.