Despite the clever title, dog lovers are well-advised to tune out after the first half of wisecracking Andy’s lumpy,...
“Is the client at least a human this time?” asks North Jersey attorney Andy Carpenter’s partner. No such luck.
Billy Zimmerman and Milo, a German shepherd, were in the police force together. Then Billy went to Iraq without Milo and lost a leg in a suicide bombing that killed 18 people, including the new reformist oil minister. Now Billy and Milo are together again, this time as thieves. On the night when they’re preparing to nab a crucial batch of papers from Major Jack Erskine, who returned from the Iraq disaster with both legs but no friends, something goes wrong. When the smoke clears, Erskine is dead, Billy is bending over him, the police are bending over Billy, Milo has hidden the papers someplace only he knows, and some well-armed bad guys are determined to get Milo to share his secret even as they cover their murderous tracks with more murders. The setup is a natural for Andy Carpenter, a sucker for hopeless cases and canine clients. And it’s a pleasure watching Andy’s ebullient maneuvering in Milo’s defense. Once he gets custody of the dog, however, the case bogs down in low-impact courtroom wrangling, rumors of far-reaching terrorist plots and government cover-ups, and intercut scenes showing sinister assassins winnowing the cast of faceless co-conspirators. Worst of all, Milo gets upstaged by threats that “the world could blow up any minute.”
Despite the clever title, dog lovers are well-advised to tune out after the first half of wisecracking Andy’s lumpy, overscaled foray into international intrigue.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-55152-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
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