Obviously destined for some high-decibel multiplex, this is a good page-turner with an appropriately colorful crew and...
A salty debut from the frozen North plots the uneven course by which seaman Henry Seine makes his way home from Alaska to the Puget Sound.
Seafaring tales (from Sebastian Junger’s nonfiction to Tom Clancy’s novels) often lean rather heavily on the nuts and bolts to such an extent that the machinery has more personality than the characters. Fortunately, Masiel’s protagonist is a full-bodied exception, though he certainly fits the classic strong, silent mold. A devoted husband of the old school, Henry spends six months of the year working tugboats and icebreakers in the frigid waters off the Alaskan coast so as to make the payments on his Washington State home. It’s a squalid life in many regards (just read the descriptions of how human waste is disposed of in subzero temperatures), but Henry is happy to put up with it—until he gets a Dear John letter from wife Heather, who tells him she’s fallen in love with another man. At that point Henry signs on with the next southbound craft he can find. Unfortunately, this turns out to be the Fearless, a filthy old pot skippered by a quasi-madman who makes Captain Bligh look like Olive Oyl. The Fearless capsizes during a gale, and Henry is narrowly rescued by clinging to the barge she was towing. The only survivor, he has the added good fortune of being plucked from the brine by beautiful Julia Lew, cook aboard the good ship Vigilant. Although they very quickly become lovers, Julia is too free a spirit to settle for one man. Besides, she and Henry soon find themselves in a race against time to rescue Louis Moneymaker, a scientist stranded on a rapidly melting icecap. Will help appear before the ice disappears?
Obviously destined for some high-decibel multiplex, this is a good page-turner with an appropriately colorful crew and perfect tempo.Pub Date: March 19, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-50606-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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