The prolific Morrell (Assumed Identity, 1993, etc.) produces another high-speed but hollow thriller. Reporter Matt Pittman, grief-stricken to the point of suicide over the death of his teenage son, pulls the gun from his mouth long enough to do his best friend and former boss, Burt Forsyth, one more favor: write the New York Chronicle's obituary section for nine days, until the paper is shut down. In hopes of reviving Pittman's interest in life, Forsyth assigns him to research a detailed obituary of Jonathan Millgate, one of five men whom D.C. insiders call ``the grand counselors.'' These wielders of great power and influence are never elected but always appointed. Although Millgate has suffered a heart attack, he's not dead yet- -but then he's taken away from the hospital in a private ambulance by suspicious figures who seem intent on rectifying that situation. Pittman's efforts to save Millgate's life get him accused of murder. On the run, everyone he approaches for help seems to get killed too, but the adrenaline of the chase—along with the presence of nurse Jill Warren, who joins him on the lam—finally gives him reason to live. Morrell has made a concerted effort to endow Pittman with psychological complexity, but all the other characters are less than stick figures. The story's ultimate stakes (Millgate was buying nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union and selling them to South Korea) are so flimsily tied to the immediate plot (ferreting out the pedophile in the five counselors' closet) that there is hardly any suspense. The gimmick of having Pittman resort for help to criminals he's written about in the past is as weak as the premise that the forces of law and order are no help to him at all. Fairly gripping in portions, but this has all been done better before. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1994
ISBN: 0-446-51791-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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
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