Wiltse's studies of psychopathic killers have been getting more and more streamlined; this tale of a couple who kidnap and murder ten- year-old boys is the most uncomplicated and efficient yet. FBI agent John Becker, on ``medical extension'' since killing Roger Dyce in Prayer for the Dead (1991), is lured back into action by his one-time lover, Deputy Assistant Director Karen Crist. After spending a night with the photos of the six victims who've been snatched from field trips and shopping malls, beaten, and smothered weeks later—a vigil that has all of Wiltse's trademark weirdness—he gets on the trail of the kidnapper he dubs ``Lamont Cranston.'' But he'll never find Lamont in time to save the life of Bobby Reynolds— the latest kidnap victim in suburban Connecticut—because Lamont is a team that doesn't fit the FBI profile: Dee, a frustrated maternal type who loves boys so much that she grabs them, and who has such high standards for their behavior that she insists on stringent discipline; and Ash, her big, dim sidekick, a killer whose bond with the victims is so deep that he's willing to kill them in order to save them further pain. While Becker—considerably more muffled than usual—and Karen pore over the evidence and fall back into bed, Dee takes Bobby to the Restawhile Motel, calls him ``Tommy,'' tickles his feet, makes him swear he loves her, and shows him off at a local McDonald's—even as the elderly proprietors of the Restawhile bicker about whether anything peculiar is going on in cabin 6. All this is unconscionable, because we know that Bobby's not going to be the last victim, since Karen has a ten-year-old son of her own.... Wiltse skillfully works a narrow margin of storytelling here. Even though there's surprisingly little narrative development, the suspense is merciless, stomach-churning.
Pub Date: Oct. 14, 1993
ISBN: 0-399-13880-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
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
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