An energizing legal tale that shows the value of asking the right questions.
A courageous lawyer seeks justice for his sister and her family in this novel.
Melanie Simpson is at her wits’ end when her husband, Jared, off his antipsychotic meds because of a recent job loss, runs out into a thunderstorm. She calls 911, a move that will change her loved ones’ lives. That’s because Lt. Vincenzo Sparafucile of the Hopperville police department in Indiana shocks Jared multiple times with the Taser-like “Electric Gun,” resulting in cardiac arrest and the black man’s eventual death. Jared’s initial vegetative state leads his son, Ryan, to take his father’s rifle to Sparafucile’s house, but the cop shoots him dead. Rocked by what has happened to her husband and son, Melanie commits suicide, leaving a note to her brother, Jason “Bear” Judge, to get justice for her family. Bear, a former FBI agent-turned-big-city attorney, had come west from New York City to support Melanie following Jared’s hospitalization. After her family is wiped out, Bear sues the makers of the Electric Gun for false safety claims and the Hopperville police for excessive force. His firm forces him out and he starts up a new practice in Indiana, aided by a talented young Kenyan associate. The two have to overcome several threats, both legal and illegal, in their effort to get justice for Melanie. What elevates this novel by Zipes is his weaving in such timely topics as police brutality toward minorities and individuals who are unable to afford essential drugs. The author, a Harvard Medical School graduate, is a professor at the Indiana University Medical Center. His career lends authenticity to the medical details that are at the heart of this story. In addition, he has created a well-rounded protagonist in Bear, a skillful interrogator who is determined to do the right thing despite an earlier mistake that continues to haunt him. Other enjoyable characters include Bear’s flawed but loving wife, Kat, and his brilliant associate, Deroshay “Shay” Odinga. The acts of intimidation against Bear’s team by the defendants seem heavy-handed but Zipes makes sure readers know who the villains are. The smooth narrative just flies along, both in and out of court. What results is a heady blend of legal thriller and social justice drama.
An energizing legal tale that shows the value of asking the right questions.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-7972-6
Page Count: 366
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.
This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550369
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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