A fast-paced, if slightly uneven, Western tale, told in a plain style.
Wyoming sheriff’s deputy Jim Edwards defends hearth and home from a gang of violent bikers in this neo-Western.
In the present day, a small crowd has gathered at the Rainbow Bar in Sheridan County, a tighknit corner of Wyoming nestled against the Bighorn Mountains, to hear the legend of Deputy Jim. The narrator takes the tale back to the early 1970s, when Jim is a young law enforcement recruit with a local reputation as a tenacious boxer and an affable family man. He proves himself early on in a protracted struggle between the sheriff’s department and the Wild Wolves, a violent biker gang with ties to Mexican drug cartels. As the conflict escalates, Jim exposes a widening web of corruption, which includes high-ranking members of the state government. Jim’s attention to detail, inherent toughness, and persistent pursuit of the truth earn him several comparisons to Dick Tracy from his colleagues. The bikers, led by notorious thugs Grinder and Pack Leader, hate to be bested, as do their cartel backers. As a result, they grow increasingly violent—hiding out in the mountains and swooping through town on campaigns of crime and intimidation. But after they kidnap Jim’s colleagues and threaten his wife and young son, they find that they’re up against a formidable enemy. As in any Western worth its salt, this story’s conclusion includes a scene of climactic violence, and it’s an action-packed sequence including several horseback riding officers of the law. In action scenes, Hendrickson (The Last Enemy, 2019, etc.) shows a knack for exciting pacing. Elsewhere, however, he can fall into excessive summary, as when he concludes a section with this passage: “For the rest of the winter of ’73-’74, Jim plays it cool, professional, and low key, but he still does his job very well.” Jim is ultimately an uncomplicated hero—responsible, protective, and brave to a fault—but in a classic, heroic cowboy way, which can be endearing.
A fast-paced, if slightly uneven, Western tale, told in a plain style.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-57135-5
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Out Reach Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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