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THE MAGICIAN'S TALE

Name: THE MAGICIAN'S TALE
Author: David Hunt
ISBN: 0-399-14260-6

by David Hunt ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1997

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A color-blind photographer searches the dark side of San Francisco for the killer of the street Adonis whose sordid life she'd been documenting. Fifteen years ago, Kay Farrow's father and a quartet of other cops put an end to the city's ``T case''—five young hustlers murdered and beheaded—by recusing the sixth victim before he could be killed too. But the victim ended up dying anyway; all the physical evidence mysteriously vanished from the scene; and four of the five cops ended up, like the unknown killer, getting eased into retirement. Now that Tim Lovsey, the beautiful prostitute Kay had been photographing for months, has been killed and dismembered, Kay can't help wondering what her father will have to say about the case, and how it's connected to his own well-publicized failure. Kay, whose photophobia (she sees only shades of gray, and is blinded by bright light) has made her a creature of the night as well, sets out to take another look at Tim's dark world through wraparound shades and a Contex viewfinder—at least until a bunch of tough guys beat her and steal the camera. She learns that although Tim was repeatedly sought out by opera stars and society types, his first loyalty was to his twin sister Ariane—a twin whose life was bound uncannily to his by David deGeoffroy, the ``uncle'' who trained them both to his vocation in magic, worked with them for years, and then watched them vanish with half his savings. It's an extravagantly promising setup, but the unraveling is a letdown: Kay's three problems (connecting Tim's murder to the T case, fingering the killer, tracking down Ariane) turn out to have all too little to do with each other, and to hold all too few surprises in store. As an exercise in atmosphere, though, Hunt's first novel is as glamorously seedy as a pristine print of a vintage film noir. (First printing of 100,000; $125,000 ad/promo)

Pub Date: June 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-399-14260-6

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.