Like a depressing tale of crime and woe from the evening news but shorn of tabloid extravagance—and with an uncommonly human...
Cop with relationship problems meets a psychopath computer repairman; differences of opinion ensue.
To say that Nova (Wetware, 2001, etc.) takes the road of understatement would be—an understatement. His ostensible protagonist, Russell Boyd, is a highway patrolman who seems to have his life pretty much buttoned down. The job isn’t exciting, but it’s also not nearly as dangerous as people would like to believe. Plus, he’s got a girlfriend, Zofia, who seems to appreciate his quiet, no-risk-taking, slow-and-steady demeanor and is committed to him in a way that’s not cloying or overly marriage-focused. Contrasted with Boyd, however, is Frank Koehler, a computer technician living by himself with an unhealthy desire to keep hunters and fisherman off his land. Lonely and looking for companionship, he decides to get a mail-order bride from Russia—not likely a good idea for either him or her. Not long after the grasping bride, Katryna, has showed up and proven to be not quite what he’d expected, Frank starts edging out of his barely sane state. Russell has a brief run-in with Frank when he takes Zofia and a couple of her schoolchildren on a fishing trip that happens to put them on Russell’s land. It’s nothing serious, just an odd encounter with a socially maladjusted man zealous about property lines, but it sets the stage for their confrontation later on, when Frank has finally snapped. Nova sets down both men’s march toward fate with a blank, determined voice that ruthlessly weeds out any sentimentality or emotional fripperies—almost making it difficult to sustain much interest in the narrative, which can seem half-asleep. As deadly details mount, though—violence creeps up unexpectedly: menacing traffic stops, a dull domestic dispute that explodes in gunfire—things take on a weighty and inevitable solemnity.
Like a depressing tale of crime and woe from the evening news but shorn of tabloid extravagance—and with an uncommonly human sensibility.Pub Date: July 13, 2004
ISBN: 1-4000-4536-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Shaye Areheart/Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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