Bumptious John Wilkes, the American Rumpole, is back in another courtroom carnival when the draconian judge who presided over his latest riotous case is stabbed to death. The case that unites Wilkes with Judge Yulburton Abraham Knott (see Wilkes, 1990, written as Winston Schoonover) is classic in its simplicity: pretty, blind Brenda Van Ark provides a detailed description of the man who attacked her outside the Woolworth Building; minutes later, cruising police pick up Lyle Diderot, Field Marshall of the Whiz Kids gang, and Brenda identifies him. Once Wilkes agrees to take on Diderot's defense for $35,000 (an amount some hooligans steal from a bank the next day), he's up against long odds- -the prosecution's built an airtight case; the defendant, who spends the trial manacled and gagged, looks guilty as hell; and Y. Knott would clearly love to have Wilkes's head mounted on the wall of his chambers—but Wilkes manages to find a preposterously successful defense. Next day, when he gets word that Y. Knott is no more, he brushes off accusations of his own involvement and moves without missing a beat into defending catatonic court clerk Alvin Scribner- -pausing only to get bosomy Becky Buttermilk off the hook on a charge of oral sodomy despite her protests that she wasn't just trying to commit the alleged act but had actually succeeded—by enlisting the dubious services of computer expert Jethro Wilmore, the Hacker- Cracker, impugning the testimony of Father Harry Leech, and filing an uproarious brief against the presiding judge. Given his run of bad luck before the bench, you have to wonder who Wilkes wouldn't mind hearing his cases. Forget Perry Mason, counselor. Wilkes really does succeed, repeatedly, in turning this courtroom into a circus.
Pub Date: March 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-345-37564-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993
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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