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THE IMPERSONATOR

Screenwriter Hammond (Sweet Lies, 1979) churns out a slick, sinister sex-cum-suspenser about a gifted, stylishly enervated chameleon's trick of haunting his clients, his lovers, and himself with secrets from the past. The Impersonator, whose name rather anticlimactically turns out to be Barrett Rossignol, first surfaces in New York's Touch Me Club, doing an impersonation of glamorous drowned performance-artist Theo Buckley that captivates her widower, Robert Elias de Pe§a (``author of two slim but popular books of philosophy for the layman''), and arouses the all-too-justified suspicions of Robert's second wife, Jane Donovan, who comes home early one day to find besotted Robert in bed with the Impersonator. Two years later, unwitting Jane herself is living with the Impersonator, who's managed to insinuate himself self- protectively into her life. Ironic, huh? Meantime, cutaways to the Impersonator's previous domestic establishment (he'd been living with Marly, a 30-ish has-been who'd thrown away ``the potential to become one of the greatest actresses of the theater'') and a long flashback to his childhood (he was a poor boy taken up by a wealthy neighbor girl who grew up to become Theo Buckley) have prepared us for the earth-shaking revelation that ``there is no Barrett. I don't think even Barrett thinks there's a Barrett.'' Finally, Jane's brother Hal, testing the Presidential waters by announcing for the Senate, needs to reopen a discreet investigation into Theo's death in order to make sure there's nothing there for the tabloids, and Hal's investigator Jacklin can't help finding the Impersonator's footprints all over Theo's past, right up to the day of her death. The Impersonator's disappeared from her bed and board—no, he's returned to threaten her with a tire iron—no, wait.... It must have taken so much energy to create this handsome, androgynous enigma and give his friends their world-class rÇsumÇs that there's none left over to pull together the threads of this foolish, deluxe trifle.

Pub Date: July 10, 1992

ISBN: 0-385-42362-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1992

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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

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