A crisply written, well-researched, and thoroughly entertaining romance/thriller/mystery.
In this crime-fiction sequel, legendary criminals Bonnie and Clyde go undercover to prevent a landmark dam from being blown up before it’s completed.
In their previous novel in this series, Hays and McFall (Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road, 2017, etc.) presented an alternative-history scenario: What if the U.S government faked the outlaws’ 1934 deaths and recruited the duo as uniquely talented operatives? Now their handler, Sal, has a new assignment for them. Two murders, and further evidence, suggest that someone is trying to sabotage what will become the Hoover Dam (still called the “Boulder Dam” in 1935). Likely suspects include union members, anarchists, or mobsters, for different reasons, but whoever’s responsible, Sal says, “the dam has to hold.” Assuming the aliases of Brenda and Clarence Prentiss, Bonnie and Clyde go undercover and get jobs—she as a secretary in the dam’s hiring office and he as a water-truck driver. Nothing about this task is harder for them than working for a living; in a running joke, Clyde destroys his alarm clock every morning by throwing it across the room. Hot on the trail of the culprits (and hot for each other), the two dodge lawmen, operatives from Murder Inc., and other dangers. Just as importantly, their consciences grow a few sizes, too. As in Resurrection Road, Hays and McFall evoke time and place well, as in their descriptions of the dam’s brand-new yet scruffy company town: “nearly identical cottages lined up like a battalion of weary desert soldiers, each standing at shabby attention over a tiny front yard of gravel and a few cactus plants.” Though set in the past, the story’s politics are fresh and timely; Jimmy Hall, a union organizer, notes that “We got some things to work through still, like making sure we’re inclusive of all folks and not just white folks, and not just men.” The word “inclusive” feels a bit too modern, but the sentiments are evergreen. Readers will find Bonnie and Clyde to be great company, and the novel’s framing story (the widowed Bonnie’s 1984 recollections) gives their relationship an extra layer of poignancy.
A crisply written, well-researched, and thoroughly entertaining romance/thriller/mystery.Pub Date: March 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9974113-6-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pumpjack Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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