Another capable and rousing Western action tale from Hamlett.
In this latest adventure starring John Lee Johnson, the hero and his friends tangle with hired killers, a crooked bounty hunter, a sinister clan bent on mayhem—and questions of innocence and redemption.
Though he failed to kill Johnson in Hamlett’s (John Lee Johnson: Both Barrels Blazing, 2015, etc.) last Western novel, Frank McGrew is still committed to revenge and hatches an even bigger plan this time, recruiting a small army of hired gunslingers. While these killers converge, Johnson captures some criminals with bounties on their heads. This exposes him both to the allies of the culprits and to the shady bounty hunter who had solid plans for what he was going to buy with the loot—and isn’t about to let anyone stop him. While Johnson faces off against the gunslingers stalking him, his friends Seth Johnson and Floyd Maccabee deal with the fallout from an outlaw attack on a town, including taking care of several orphans and running across a mild-mannered clerk who is suspiciously good with a gun. As with previous installments in the series, Johnson is presented as such a paragon of Western skills and virtues—“He ain’t like any man I’ve ever seen,” says one admiring woman—that there isn’t that much suspense about the outcome. In that way, readers may be reminded of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and other iconic heroes, where the pleasure of the tale is found not in suspense over the outcome but in how they get there. And as with Hamlett’s other books, some of the thrill here is in the side characters, who are drawn with humor and humanity: readers see a wicked patriarch burst into tears over deaths in his family and hear of one pugnacious fellow who would “fight at the drop of a hat and drop his own hat.” Even when Johnson wrestles with the question of his conscience, the outcome isn’t really in doubt. The focus remains on his exploits and legend rather than on a modernist exploration of psychology.
Another capable and rousing Western action tale from Hamlett.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4582-2074-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: AbbottPress
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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