A first-class whodunit and a witty, clever, and delightful read.
Leggett (Prosperity, 2014, etc.) delivers a murder mystery that also skewers university politics.
Chancellor Michael Joseph O’Connor of Western Appalachian University in Knoxville, Tennessee, is facing a crisis. Just three weeks before the university’s budget is to be approved, the corpse of J. Hollis Sanders, head of the English Department, is found in Sanders’ office, and he’s evidently has been dead for a week. O’Connor wants to minimize any scandal that might arise from the inevitable investigation. Speaking with his colleagues, he echoes one of the narrative’s major themes: “There’s nothing more uninteresting than a dead man. What’s interesting is how he got to be dead.” His goal is to “keep the story as uninteresting as possible.” Unfortunately, the hastily assembled administrators decide to hire a man named Robert Cory to act as a liaison between the campus police and the Knoxville police and to manage all press releases. He’s told not to investigate the crime, but, of course, that’s exactly what he does. Cory is independently wealthy and a bit of a hermit; since his divorce, he’s retreated from all his friends, but Jack Abbott, one formerly close buddy, is a member of the English department, so he figures that there’s no harm in talking to him about the dead man. Leggett has chosen the perfect setting for a novel filled with gossip, speculation, and engaging philosophical debate. It’s great fun to follow along with Cory as he winds his way through a university and encounters fragile egos, back-stabbing, and secret foibles. O’Connor accurately describes his faculty to the Inspector of Campus Safety and Security: “these are very sensitive, perceptive people. They’re accustomed to reading more into things than is actually there—they call it literary criticism.” Cory confronts his own demons during this quest to discover the truth about the murder, and he makes a fine guide for readers as he does so.
A first-class whodunit and a witty, clever, and delightful read.Pub Date: June 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-60489-205-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
© Copyright 2025 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.
