A labyrinth of stories made coherent with astute writing and a capable, authentic lead.
In Taylor’s (The Antelope Play, 2013, etc.) third legal thriller featuring Donnie Ray Cuinn, the Texas lawyer’s mother and adoptive father may have been schemed out of money by an old friend.
Don hasn’t been pals with Wesley Bird since the former all-American football player betrayed Don for his own political gain. But Wesley’s latest venture may be even worse: he’s convinced Don’s parents, professor Ralph Rothschild and Dorrie Louise, to invest in a (most likely) fraudulent land development deal. Unfortunately, Ralph has persuaded others at the Cartwright House, a retirement home where he’s staying, to invest as well. Don works to get everyone’s money returned, while also helping ensure that the H.H. Company doesn’t sell a tract of land—the Hieronymus Parcel, which neighbors the Cartwright House—for commercial development. The novel has an unusual structure: the novel treats all subplots equally. Don’s parents are initially the focus: the story opens with the Ralph-chaired group Save The Chimps trying to shut down the Primate Preserve on the Hieronymus Parcel. But Don can’t devote himself entirely to Ralph and Dorrie Louise; his office, which is barely making ends meet, is also handling difficult discrimination cases, and he just reignited a relationship with attorney Anna Kaye Nordstrom. Taylor’s approach works, however, by fueling the story with a fast pace and an obstacle-laden protagonist. The legal details ring true: Don is relegated to watching as the DA goes after Wesley for securities fraud and must hand off one of his cases to associate Wiley Franklin. His flaws, too, make him all the more intriguing; his romance with Anna Kaye, for one, may be doomed from the start, as he’s still pining over his late wife. Subplots receive excessive attention, including the convoluted legal back story to Don’s “errand man” Bobby Bill, but Taylor has fun with the entangled plot threads, providing clever and often unexpected resolutions, especially regarding Wesley’s shady deal.
A labyrinth of stories made coherent with astute writing and a capable, authentic lead.Pub Date: June 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9894707-1-1
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Katherine Brown Pres
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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