Sufficient mystery nearly overshadowed by stellar character subplots and a sweet but realistic father-daughter reunion.
A Phoenix PI and the teenage daughter he just learned he had find themselves embroiled in deception, murder, and human trafficking in Lewis’ debut thriller.
The latest drunken rant from Enid Iglowski’s mom comes with a shock: Enid’s father isn’t really her father. Enid tracks down her biological dad, Jack Fox, a private eye working in Arizona. Jack had no idea Enid existed, and he doesn’t know what to do with her. Plus, he’s already got enough on his plate: Jeni Hargrove hires him to find her real mother, while her wealthy sister Eve pays Jack to drop Jeni’s case. Detective Bud Orlean, meanwhile, may have a break in Daniel Hargrove’s presumed murder. Daniel, the sisters’ stepfather, has been missing for over three years; someone mailed a few body parts, including a heart, to the cops, but police have found what could be the rest of him. As Jack starts a dangerous relationship with Eve, he wonders why another private eye is following him—and who’s behind another, more recent murder. Despite Jack’s job, the murder investigation takes a back seat to an elaborate, albeit continually fascinating, soap opera. There are shades of a detective story: dark family secrets, more than one femme fatale, and Enid’s going undercover at a home for wayward girls to get some dirt on the Hargroves. But drama abounds, overwhelmingly so: Bud’s wife, Bunnie, threatens to divorce him if he won’t retire, and son Chip drops out of med school to become a writer; Petunia, with whom Jack had an affair, doesn’t seem to want to leave him alone; and Enid is terrified that Jack will hate her, but the stubborn girl doesn’t make liking her very easy. Rather than identifying a killer(s), the story eventually becomes more about who’s having (or wants to have) sex with whom. Enid is initially exasperating—she’s not above tantrums or milking others for sympathy since she was the result of a one-night stand—but she’ll grow on readers. Meanwhile, the banter and heated arguments between Jack and Enid are typically funny, almost endearing. She clearly wants a father, and his care for her is unmistakable. Lewis also drops in a few surprising turns both for the murders and the intermingling soap-operatic stories.
Sufficient mystery nearly overshadowed by stellar character subplots and a sweet but realistic father-daughter reunion.Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990610809
Page Count: 384
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 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.
