A chilling and satisfying tale of suspense.
The zodiac becomes the tool of a murderer in this mystery novel.
Although he’s still reeling from a failed romance, 62-year-old former Newark Tribune newspaper journalist Quentin Thomas spends his days enjoying retirement. Then he receives an urgent phone call from a colleague at the paper who wants him to dig into a strange story. A serial killer has been targeting lawyers and leaving strange written messages featuring astrological signs with the victims’ bodies. Quentin investigates in order to find a possible explanation for the murderer’s hatred of lawyers and obsession with astrology, and a dangerous cat-and-mouse game ensues. After love enters Quentin’s life unexpectedly, the reporter realizes that the killer will stop at nothing to destroy the people that he holds dear. The story effectively generates a classic film-noir mood, with Quentin as a reluctant and jaded hero on the hunt for a bloodthirsty maniac. One particularly suspenseful scene involves a narrow escape from a booby trap set by the killer in a storage facility. Scenes in which Quentin tails the suspect in his car feel tightly wound, evoking suspense and feelings of paranoia. The author depicts a stark Newark cityscape with strangers lurking in the shadows, which adds a gritty sense of claustrophobia and dread to the proceedings. However, there are also surprising elements of human vulnerability and sorrow that give the story emotional weight. Readers even get intimate glimpses into the villain’s history, which results in a complex read. The dialogue is satisfyingly witty and comedic, as well, with occasional moments of profundity.
A chilling and satisfying tale of suspense.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-615-80619-8
Page Count: 398
Publisher: DiggyPOD Inc
Review Posted Online: May 23, 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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