In the primeval forest there is a prophecy: a fawn born with an oak-leaf mark on his forehead will change the future of the Herne (as the deer are called). This augury is the keystone of first-time novelist Clement-Davies’s sweeping animal fantasy. Rannoch is the hunted and hidden fawn who must find his destiny. His father and the entire legion of Outrider bucks have been betrayed and slain by Drail, the Lord of the Herds and his followers. Rannoch is fostered among strangers, only to be hunted first by the Drail’s Nazi-like legions and then by the Machiavellian Sgorr and his minion. Tutored by the others of the animal kingdom, rescued by man, surviving many close calls on his journey, Rannoch faces his ambivalence and fear to lead the deer from their bondage. This vividly told story is not for the faint of heart: dreadful predictions, holocaust-like massacres, and ritual killings pervade this tale. Imaginatively placed in the wilds of ancient Britain, the obviousness of the allegory, with Rannoch as a Christ-like figure may make some readers cringe and others fill with ominous dismay, as it seems the story rushes to an unmistakable conclusion. Jaded readers of the genre will be surprised and relieved as the narrative veers off into the unexpected. A hurtling ride. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-525-46492-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
PERSPECTIVES
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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