An absorbing and suspenseful story of intergenerational family ties.
Armed with fortitude and a .357 Magnum, a California grandmother and her young grandson go up against a crooked corporation and big pharma in Ragano’s thriller.
Seventy-something retiree Stella Valentine is recovering from cancer. She’s now healthy thanks to her participation in a trial for Helixin, a new drug. But her troubles begin when Great American Superstore takes over Stella’s former employer, Caruso’s Supermarket. After the corporation cancels her pension plan, she can no longer afford the Helixin treatment. Neither Great American reps nor her doctor, Dr. Whittier, will help her, and Stella’s son, Frank, only makes things worse. He owes thuggish millionaire Lester Cummings after a failed real estate venture. To satisfy Lester’s demand for “escrow,” Frank puts his mother in Shady Palms, a Lester-owned retirement home. To escape, Stella gets assistance from her 11-year-old grandson (and Frank’s son), Johnny. The familial duo takes a stand against Shady Palms’ fixed bingo games before going after the free Helixin samples Dr. Whittier is stockpiling. They soon realize, however, they can help others by providing prescription drugs, which will require boosting the drugs from Great American delivery trucks. All of this, of course, incites menacing individuals, but Stella and Johnny pair their tenacity with Stella’s personal revolver. Notwithstanding the playful title, Ragano (The Voting Machine, 2012, etc.) generally takes the story seriously. Stella and Johnny, for example, are constantly under threat by men willing to harm them or worse. Nevertheless, the author wisely tones down the violence, as Stella never fires a gun with intent to kill. Dialogue is likewise relatively tame, as Stella, despite her “teeth clenched with rage,” drops a “Doggone it” in lieu of something harsher. Detective Rebecca Little is a laudable supporting character, sympathetic to the Valentines but also a reminder that they’re lawbreakers. At the same time, a transparent but still convincing anti-capitalism theme makes the villains apparent; prosperous Whittier’s racquetball tournament unquestionably takes precedence over Stella, his patient.
An absorbing and suspenseful story of intergenerational family ties.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4701-2537-0
Page Count: 386
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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