More painful than funny.
A few twists and turns fail to lift this unimaginative novel out of boredom and turgidity.
A predictable assortment of lowlifes inhabits the book. The narrator is Benny Bunt, the “snitch” of the title, a denizen of the Greasy Tuesday, a dive housing a collection of other lowlifes. Benny is a fount of arcane and useless information, mainly owing to his having memorized all the cards from Trivial Pursuit (which edition is uncertain). Because his marriage to Donna has become a “loveless cage,” he finds social (certainly not intellectual or sexual) fulfillment at the Tuesday. There he comes under the spell of Gus “Mad Dog” Miller, nominally a Vietnam vet and self-described badass. What brings them together as metaphorical brothers is “nothing more complicated than [Gus’s] desire to tell stories and my desire to hear them.” Problem is, Gus is both more and less complicated than he seems. After getting Benny deeply involved in a bizarre hit scheme—with appropriate but predictable allusions to The Sopranos—Gus is eventually revealed to be Gerry Finkel, a drifter and Vietnam vet manqué, who had taken over Gus’s identity in a distorted admiration to be someone who’d actually had some Real Life Experiences. To his credit, Benny retrospectively realizes that if someone says “a thing with enough fire and conviction [and adds] a few fistfuls of Svengali charisma…just about anything sounds true.” Benny bewilderingly finds himself accused of a double murder, and Walter Goins, his public defender who wears Looney Tunes and Three Stooges ties, doesn’t inspire confidence. Goffard mixes up narrative structures by including “transcripts” from Benny’s trial and a sensationalized account called Murder on the Edge!, the result of a prison interview Benny gave. This is the kind of novel with dialogue like “You’ve really lived life. I love your tats, man. You’ve done time?”
More painful than funny.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58567-954-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Rookery/Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
An unsettling, often scary account of how memory loss affects a strong woman’s life.
A coffeehouse manager awakens on a park bench minus much of her memory.
Clare Cosi wakes up stiff and cold in Washington Square Park. Though there are lots of things she doesn’t remember, she does know that she’ll be safe at the Village Blend coffeehouse, where she’s greeted with joy and told that she’s been missing for four days. When her ex-husband, Matteo Allegro, and his mother, Madame Blanche Allegro Dubois, the coffee shop's owner, arrive on the scene, they realize she’s forgotten the last 15 years of her life and thinks she’s living in New Jersey with her young daughter, Joy. Hospitalized, she fails to recognize both Joy, now a grown-up, and her current fiance, Detective Mike Quinn. Celebrity psychiatrist Dr. Dominic Lorca takes over Clare’s care and insists she be moved to an upstate facility. Despite pulling every string available, Mike can’t free her from Lorca even though she’s a witness in the case of missing heiress Annette Brewster. Clare, no shrinking violet, pretends to take her drugs but is dying for a cup of coffee. Madame Blanche, Matteo, and Tucker Burton, the Village Blend’s assistant manager, hatch a plan to bust Clare free and find a place where she can be relaxed and open to stimuli that will help revive her memory. But Clare is loath to go with Matteo, who cheated on her repeatedly, even though their current relationship is good. Talking with her friends evokes memories of her past detective work (Shot in the Dark, 2018, etc.), and she struggles to relive her most recent days, some of which she spent with Annette, who’d arranged a private tasting of wedding cakes in the hotel she owns. Clare, Mike, and Matteo end up hiding out in the Hamptons from the police and a killer who’s stalking her.
An unsettling, often scary account of how memory loss affects a strong woman’s life.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-451-48887-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Romance, suspense, mystery, and bawdy historical customs add up to a fine read.
A couple with a reputation for crime-solving becomes involved in an odd murder case in 1832 Scotland.
Kiera Gage, better known as Lady Darby, and her husband, Sebastian Gage (An Artless Demise, 2019, etc.), are among the five dozen guests the Duke and Duchess of Bowmont have invited to Twelfth Night festivities at an immense Gothic castle in the Scottish border country. Kiera’s first marriage—the source of the title she'd rather not use—made her both miserable and notorious for executing anatomical drawings for her cruel husband, but she’s more recently gained a reputation as a portrait artist, and the Duchess is her client. Each guest at the ball is given a costume to wear and a role to play; amusingly, the heavily pregnant Kiera is a nun. Although the Duke claims all his children as his own, several of them were actually sired by other men. When his third son, Lord Edward, offers a ghost tour, the Gages are happy to escape the ballroom until the group stumbles upon a dead body in the dungeons. Ravaged by rats and decomposition, the corpse is difficult to identify, but its gentlemanly attire suggests that it may be Helmswick, the husband of the duke's daughter Lady Eleanor, who left for Paris a month ago. The ducal couple beg the Gages to investigate while withholding vital information. Lady Eleanor was unhappy with Helmswick, a man of many secrets and mistresses, and she’s commenced an affair with her first love, the Marquess of Marsdale. After the guests who were not at the castle when the murder occurred are permitted to depart, a disconcerting number of suspects remain behind. Kiera knows she’s touched a nerve when someone tries to push her down a flight of stairs. She and Gage must uncover many family secrets before they can unmask a killer.
Romance, suspense, mystery, and bawdy historical customs add up to a fine read.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-451-49138-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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