by Dirk Wyle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2015
Your nerdy uncle gets creepy, transforming his vacation travelogue into Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Eyes Wide Shut. Worth...
Modern and Mayan cultures clash in scientist Ben Candidi’s sixth adventure (Bahamas West End is Murder, 2005, etc.).
Curious about the flight patterns of circling vultures, Ben talks Rebecca, his physician fiancee, into taking a quick detour on the way to the next Mayan village in the Yucatán where she was going to do research. In a clearing, they find a body unnaturally splayed on the rocks. Rebecca alertly observes that the victim’s heart is missing, and both she and Ben wonder whether the murder might involve some sort of ritual. They notice a series of handwritten hieroglyphs on the body, which they helpfully point out to the investigating officers. Ben knows better than to trust the police to do what he, a trained pharmacologist, is well-equipped to do, so he resolves to launch a full-on murder investigation. He learns that the victim is B’alam Chuc, born of a Mayan family, who’s a student at the local university. Ben speaks with the family through B’alam’s younger brother, Ichik, who’s equally invested in understanding the crime. As he conscientiously provides many ecological and historical details in his first-person narration, Ben investigates possible motives and peppers the tale with thankfully vague innuendo about his relationship with Rebecca. Each theory Ben considers is interesting and plausible, making the big reveal a little less big and revealing. You can be sure a protagonist like Ben would never cross the line into actual danger.
Your nerdy uncle gets creepy, transforming his vacation travelogue into Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Eyes Wide Shut. Worth reading only if that uncle is your hero.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-56825-189-9
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Rainbow Books, Inc.
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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