Another winner in this highly entertaining series, capped off with satisfying revelations.
An elderly Bonnie Parker in the 1980s tells of how she and Clyde Barrow protected the Manhattan Project in this final thriller in a trilogy.
What if Bonnie and Clyde’s deaths in a famous 1934 shootout were faked, so that they could serve American interests as undercover agents? That’s the premise of the previous two books in this trilogy, in which the outlaws changed their names to Brenda and Clarence Prentiss and performed special assignments for their handler, Sal. In 1984, 74-year-old Bonnie has made a deal with reporter Royce Jenkins: She’ll give him her full story if he helps her solve three mysteries, including Sal’s true identity. As they investigate—and dodge people following them—Bonnie explains how she and Clyde went undercover in the 1940s as owners of the Ranchland Deluxe bar in Richland, Washington—a city that was also the location of a top-secret plutonium production site for the Manhattan Project. Their mission was to discover who in the community might be “willing, or forced, to share secrets with America’s enemies.” By 1945, they narrowed down the suspects to six Americans, plus a couple of suspicious Germans and Russian circus performers—but they soon found themselves dodging knives, bullets, other spies, and a firebombing. Later, Royce tracks down the surprising, explosive truth about Sal and the organization backing her. Hays and McFall (Bonnie and Clyde: Dam Nation, 2018, etc.) keep up the momentum in this third series outing, which features plenty of action and danger. There are also intermittent steamy interludes between Bonnie and Clyde, who come off as a wisecracking, low-rent version of Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man. Tricky puzzles, chases, spycraft, and red herrings keep the plot bubbling along. But underlying all the shenanigans is a serious consideration of the nature of patriotism in an America that’s increasingly becoming dominated by the military-industrial complex. Overall, the book makes a rousing stand in favor of have-nots, working people, and dreamers; at one point, Bonnie unusually stands up for gay rights in 1945 (“Love is love no matter what”).
Another winner in this highly entertaining series, capped off with satisfying revelations.Pub Date: May 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9974113-5-5
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Pumpjack Press
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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