by Daniel Edward Craig ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2007
Behind-the-scenes look at hotel management and personal angst overpower the meager mystery.
A trendy New York hotel provides the setting for a brutal murder.
Canadian Trevor Lambert’s life revolves around his job as director of rooms at the extravagant Universe Hotel, a job he finds especially difficult when grumpy Brenda Rathberger, director of VOID (Victims of Impaired Drivers), arrives in advance of a big meeting. Trevor and Brenda stumble over the body of Willard Godfrey, Trevor's hero and owner of the hotel, apparently a victim of an alcohol-fueled hit and run. Trevor walked home but his fellow executives, the only people with access to the underground garage where the body was found, had all taken their vehicles out despite a night of heavy drinking at the staff Christmas party. Trevor neglects his visiting mother as he strives to keep things together at the Universe, and his fellow directors are all jockeying for the managing directing job even as their personal lives are falling apart. Ex-astronaut Matthew Drummond gets the nod from Godfrey’s daughter Cynthia, a party girl with no interest in the Universe, and Drummond delegates practically every job to Trevor, whose own personal life has been ruthlessly pushed aside by his passion for the hotel. Angry VOID members cause Trevor major problems exacerbated by Brenda’s interview with muckraking journalist Honica Winters. Trevor becomes a reluctant sleuth when all their jobs depend on finding the murderer.
Behind-the-scenes look at hotel management and personal angst overpower the meager mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7387-1118-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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