TERRIBLE ANGEL

Name: TERRIBLE ANGEL
Author: Dermot McEvoy
ISBN: 1-58574-742-4

by Dermot McEvoy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 16, 2002

Formulaic and a bit heavy on location (so many New York bars and shops get mentioned it seems like product placement), but a...

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Publishing veteran McEvoy envisions what would happen if Michael Collins had come back from the dead to travel to New York in the 1990s.

On things that matter, the nuns usually got it right, and it was a lucky break for Irish revolutionary Michael Collins that he remembered the Act of Contrition that the good sisters taught him to recite whenever in danger of death. Murmured with his last breath after rebel forces ambushed him in 1922, it saved Collins from a quick slide to hell and got him into purgatory by the skin of his teeth. But, after 70 years, the heavenly jury is still out: Has he atoned sufficiently for all the killings he committed in the Easter Rising of 1916 and during the civil war that followed? It’s decided that Collins still needs to prove himself, so he’s dispatched to New York with orders to spring one Martin Twomey (falsely accused of IRA activity) from the clutches of the INS, which is about to extradite him to Great Britain (where he will almost certainly be imprisoned for life). If he saves this innocent man without shedding more blood, Collins gets through the pearly gates—otherwise, it’s back to the holding pen. For a man who’s been dead for seven decades, Collins certainly lands on his feet in New York: He makes friends with the bartender at the Lion’s Head, who puts him in touch with the priest who is chaplain to the INS detention center, who gets him in to see Twomey in no time at all. There’s the usual problem of informers, however, and a corrupt NYPD detective who’s in cahoots with British intelligence. But all this is child’s play to someone who outsmarted Winston Churchill.

Formulaic and a bit heavy on location (so many New York bars and shops get mentioned it seems like product placement), but a pleasant and amusing debut even so.

Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2002

ISBN: 1-58574-742-4

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Lyons Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.