A skillfully written novel with plenty of intrigue, plot twists, and romance.
The need for revenge runs deep in Ingold’s (Square, 2014, etc.) latest mystery/thriller.
Elisa Gilbert, a costume designer for a repertory company, abandons her life in Oregon and heads to her childhood home in San Francisco after she catches her actor husband and his leading lady in flagrante delicto. She moves in with her mother, Ruth Bolcar, a divorced alcoholic who’s proud of her daughter’s decision to leave. Lawrence “Pug” Bolcar, Elisa’s father, is a larger-than-life attorney who enjoys the ladies and a round of poker now and then, and he’s in financial trouble following a massive loss at cards. As Elisa attempts to sort her own life out, Pug tries to avoid paying his debt and becomes entangled in a series of events involving wiretaps, seemingly vengeful Colombians, and a drug-smuggling operation. Behind the scenes stands Harold Manx, a cop who’s never recovered from the loss of his daughter to a cult nearly 10 years ago. He blames Pug, who assisted her legally, for her estrangement and sets in motion a complicated scheme to embarrass and destroy him. Although Elisa has her hands full trying to take care of her mother and deal with a potential new love interest, she gets swept up in Pug’s troubles as well. Ingold’s book has all the makings of a film noir, with plenty of booze and cigarettes, but it has a neater (and happier) ending than most stories of that genre. Most of the characters show a layer of desperation; they’re all dealing with their own troubles while unknowingly caught in the same web. Ingold’s narrative is laid out like a movie or stage play, and its shifts from scene to scene are effortless. He maintains the easy flow of each character’s separate plotline until they all tie neatly together. Glimpses of everyday life, such as Harold and his wife doing dishes or Elisa standing alone on her balcony at night, provide welcome breaks from the complicated yet compelling sting operation involving Pug and Harold. The relationship between Elisa and her handsome new man is an enjoyable addition to the mystery.
A skillfully written novel with plenty of intrigue, plot twists, and romance.Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9786-9519-4
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Wolfenden
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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