An imposing, unforgettable modern take on the classic detective story.
In Musial’s debut thriller, a former Army Ranger working at a pool hall turns detective when he becomes a person of interest in a murder investigation.
Max Deacon is just a guy earning his keep at Dougie’s Pool Hall in Chicago. But his scuffle with a few goons impresses Luna Del Playa so much that she asks for his help. Apparently, Luna and her gal pals at Mellon’s Bar and Grill are being sexually harassed by their boss. Max stops by the restaurant and roughs up Marky Sanchez, but a few weeks later, Marky gets a bullet in the head and another in the chest. Cops take an immediate interest in Max, who goes about trying to clear his name. He can’t decide between suspects Praxibus Sanchez (Marky’s gangster father) and Hector, a bookie to whom Marky owed a hefty debt. It seems Max is on the right track when someone shows up at his apartment to kill him. Now Max needs all the support he can get, and luckily he’s got boss Dougie, Army buddy Moose, and cop brother Stan on his side. Author Musial deftly complements the contemporary setting with a traditional detective story: a night owl who often works the late shift, Max smells like cigarettes from the pool room (even though it’s illegal to smoke in there), and his dark past, which includes time in Iraq, leads to PTSD and recurring nightmares. Max’s friends and colleagues are a winsome, motley bunch, even Dougie’s day-shift employee Wally, who speaks broken English with a thick Polish accent. The ladies are unfortunately not as engaging; they’re predominantly eye candy for the men. Max starts a (mostly physical) relationship with Mellon’s bartender Gwen, but she’s interchangeable with any of the other female characters, from Luna to Max’s co-worker Sharon. Musial, however, loads his story with shocking moments, including a torture scene that redefines the word pincushion. There’s also tough-guy dialogue with a delicate sprinkling of humor: a beaten and bloody Max blames his condition on a door-to-door salesman—“gave me the hard sell on a set of steak knives.” This could conceivably—and hopefully—be the first in a series to feature the unseasoned but capable gumshoe.
An imposing, unforgettable modern take on the classic detective story.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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