In a remarkable change of pace, Honig, best known for baseball fiction (Last Man Out, 1993, etc.), has produced a wonderfully haunting tale of military crime and punishment on the American frontier. When word reaches Washington in the spring of 1876 that General Alfred Englund has been savagely murdered in the dead of night within the confines of his remote command (Fort Larkin in the Dakota Territory), there is shock but little surprise in the US Army's officer corps: Few of his colleagues expected that this magnificently mad avatar of the Union Cause would meet a normal end. A warrior who inspired considerable awe, Englund had supposedly once had his sword struck by a lightning bolt as he hurled it heavenward while rallying troops on the eve of a Civil War battle. Although the facts suggest that Englund and a corporal of the guard who was found stabbed to death at the same time were both butchered by a senior officer at Fort Larkin, a local board of inquiry cannot identify the killer. Under direct orders from President Grant, Captain Thomas Maynard (who'd been helping to plan the celebration of the nation's Centennial in Philadelphia) is sent West to bring the assassin to justice. A blooded up-from-the-ranks veteran of the Civil War, Maynard has a guilty secret of his own. In the course of his discreet investigation into the coincidental deaths, he learns that most of Englund's senior officers (who were preparing to march against Northern Plains tribes resentful of the gold rush that had defiled their sacred Black Hills) had reason to fear and hate their commander. By patiently sifting through the evidence, the outsider is able to solve the mystery of Fort Larkin and its dangerously evangelical commander. A thoroughly adult Western that addresses great themes—duty, honor, and losses of innocence—within the context of an absorbing, suspenseful narrative.
Pub Date: March 4, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-80321-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1996
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
