Adds little to the Ross Duncan series, but as a self-contained mystery, it’s a knockout.
In Bartley’s (To Catch is Not to Hold, 2013, etc.) latest hard-boiled thriller, former bank robber Ross Duncan, commissioned to locate a wayward granddaughter, exposes blackmail and prostitution in 1934 New York.
Coming highly recommended by Chicago gangsters, Duncan is hired by Col. Bennett, an aging war veteran, after someone asking for a payoff sends the colonel a compromising photo of his granddaughter, Veronica. Her blackmailing of married men is just the start of Duncan’s investigation, which is hindered by an open contract on him. But who wants him dead? The fifth book in Bartley’s ongoing series boasts a film-noir feel, more so than the previous novels: Every female character, particularly Veronica, is an untrustworthy femme fatale; Duncan gets roughed up by heavies, and though he’s never slipped a Mickey, he’s otherwise rendered unconscious. Despite saying he’s “something else altogether” when asked if he’s a detective, Duncan does, in fact, play the part of the gumshoe. Bartley relies on previous books in the series to define Duncan; readers familiar with the series will understand Duncan’s personal desire to help the redemption-seeking Bennett. For new readers, amid the mostly superficial references to earlier stories, Duncan will come across as a stoic, hardened man. Most of the supporting characters making a first appearance in the series have plenty of personality, too, including Remo Marsden, a two-bit hoodlum who seems to have genuine affection for Veronica; and Nancy Presser, a woman who remains hopeful even in the clutches of drug addiction and prostitution. Welcome trademarks of the series pop up throughout: a good amount of action (gangsters are trying to kill Duncan, after all); Duncan’s Bible at his side; and keen dialogue, as when Duncan, reminded that he’ll die someday, says matter-of-factly, “I have things to do first.” But the story, despite being refreshingly complex with an endless stream of suspects and red herrings, seems like it could have been told with anyone in the lead, not necessarily Duncan.
Adds little to the Ross Duncan series, but as a self-contained mystery, it’s a knockout.Pub Date: May 29, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Peach Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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