Compelling tales trapped in a prison of formulaic storytelling.
The long arm of the law evades decency in this short story collection.
Clarke’s sharp debut consists of nine tales concerning Washington, D.C.’s underbelly, from haunted public servants to downtrodden misfits. The collection opens with “Sweet Dreams Called Leavin’,” the story of Tommy Agee, an idealistic defense attorney trying to win his first jury trial for an innocent client. It introduces readers to the class and racial tensions that the author seems especially keyed into. “I could sleepwalk through the trial naked and still convict your client,” the prosecutor tells Agee early on. This callous calculation that borders on contempt for Washington’s poor citizens is often taken to task throughout the volume, most touchingly in the titular “Death By Grand Jury.” In it, a tough cop with little left to live for helps a teenage witness to a crime and her mother escape after he plays a part in forcing her to testify before a grand jury. Courtroom archetypes abound in this collection, and readers will see echoes of Agee in the young, smooth U.S. attorney sweet-talking the teen into a life-altering testimony. But Clarke is at his most rewarding when he subverts or complicates these archetypes. In “Birds Of A Feather,” the volume’s second story, a strange cat-and-mouse game plays out between a hardened defense attorney and Marvin Hawkins, his unlikable, shiftless client. The lawyer’s distaste for Hawkins compels the client to take his defense into his own hands. This gumptious plan then forces the attorney to reassess both his ability to do his job and Hawkins in a way he doesn’t anticipate. The author produces strong character studies for his main subjects. The stakes they face infuse each tale with a cinematic quality, which is aided by often tidy endings. The actual twist in “Birds Of A Feather” is easy to see coming, as is the pivotal decision an ailing hit man makes during a job in “A Shooting On R Street.” These endings are comforting in their familiarity, but their simplicity often betrays the complicated character work Clarke has done.
Compelling tales trapped in a prison of formulaic storytelling.Pub Date: April 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64237-379-0
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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