Pell writes with a sure, confident hand, the flame of the first page making it almost till the end.
Murder, blackmail and corporate greed give a newly promoted Scotland Yard chief inspector a run for his money in his first case in this investigative thriller where inaction is sometimes the best action.
Simon Craig had a good thing going as a marketing chief for an English steel manufacturer, but he wanted more. A “womanizing rogue,” Craig was a member of a shadowy cabal known as “the club,” a group of executives that illegally set steel prices among European Union steelmakers. He blackmails his former associates and, as insurance, entrusts a package of damning evidence with ex-flame and solicitor Susan Robson. To cover their tracks, the club torches Robson’s office and kills off Craig in the prologue. Craig, a serviceable McGuffin, is presented several times through flashbacks that show his flawed, preening personality but do little to further the plot; he’s best left dead and buried. Long-suffering widow Rachel lets Scotland Yard know Craig’s employers were sniffing around for paperwork—just the clue Randall needs to begin piecing the conspiracy together. Craig’s evidence survives, and Robson, along with another of his lovers, secretly plans to use it to punish the corporate criminals. As time runs out for Randall’s investigation, Craig’s death becomes moot as all involved sense there are bigger fish to fry; unfortunately, few of them make it to the pan. In a picturesque and well-described Europe, what ensues is a mad dash as club minions maneuver to keep their money and their employers safe and out of jail while Robson marshals her team amid mounting deaths. The prose is all business with few flashes of insight or wit, but it moves the story and characters along with economy and hardly any wasted words. Before a relatively lackluster denouement, the inventive plot and characters will keep readers focused and guessing at what intrigues are to come.
Pell writes with a sure, confident hand, the flame of the first page making it almost till the end.Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1496983060
Page Count: 238
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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