A none-too-bright protagonist rises (with a vengeance) to the rococo occasion in another overblown thriller from Jones (In Deep, 1991, etc.). Would-be playwright Chris Nielson and his baby-makes-three family have moved from southern California to the foothills of the Colorado Rockies; their lakeside A-frame, supposedly inherited by Chris's enigmatic wife Matty, is invaded of an autumn afternoon by a mysterious stranger named Frank Springer. Initially introduced as Matty's cousin, the glib intruder soon claims to be her husband and bars Chris from his own home. An outraged Chris gets no help in asserting his rights from either the local police or Matty (a lady with a past who fears for the safety of her infant son Nicky). At wit's end, he eventually falls in with CIA operative Sarah Rawlings. She offers to aid him in return for his help in killing a wily Russian arms-dealer whom Springer (a freelance hit man) let off the hook. Desperate, Chris accepts her bizarre deal and tracks his quarry to a mountain lair where he manages to best him in hand- to-hand combat during a blizzard. Unfortunately, the suggestible hero's troubles are far from over, since Sarah dies in the violent course of the successful assassination. With timely assistance from aging but adventurous attorney Abe Goldstein, however, Chris soldiers on while the homicidal Springer dispatches inconvenient witnesses and degrades Matty (to whom he was indeed married) with kinky sexual demands. At wearisome length, Chris and his estranged wife, sporadically in touch, hatch a complicated plot to slay their maniacal nemesis. Approved by Goldstein, the scheme involves luring Springer to Niagara Falls (where he honeymooned with Matty) for a cliff-hanging confrontation marked (among other things) by a last- minute rescue of little Nicky. An eventful thriller that's almost too silly for words.
Pub Date: Dec. 11, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-94231-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
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
BOOK REVIEW
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