In a terrific debut for retired New York policeman Dee, two detectives investigating mob activities mistakenly fish the wrong cement-filled barrel out of the East River. This one contains the remains of a wayward cop who's been missing for 10 years. While tailing aging mobster Bobo Rizzo, detectives Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory observe Ugo Bongiovanni, reputed to be the new ``boss'' of the Fulton Fish Market, and two henchman dump a white barrel off the pier at 14 Peck Slip. Certain they've witnessed a mob hit, they're shocked when divers retrieve a rusted barrel filled with Jinx Mulgrew, a cop who'd vanished just before he was to testify about police corruption. The trail is not all that cold, however. Known as the ``King of the Bagmen,'' Mulgrew, according to Rizzo, tried to shake down Bongiovanni for 50 grand the day he turned up missing. But, says Rizzo, the mob didn't kill Mulgrew; cops did. ``You got to face that,'' he says. ``Happens in all families.'' Things get complicated when Gregory learns that his father, Liam, now retired from the force, was prepared to give his old pal Mulgrew $10,000 to help him get away. But Ryan and Gregory also discover that Liam had been seeing Mulgrew's widow for years, even before he disappeared. Then they find an old photograph of Mulgrew on a fishing trip with Rizzo and their own boss, the distinguished Inspector Neddy Flanagan. When the original barrel surfaces near Governors Island, the bullet they take from the victim matches the one taken from Zipper, a mildly retarded informant executed, apparently, for talking to them. However, when they raid the warehouse at 14 Peck Slip, the only gun they find is Mulgrew's .38 service revolver. Filled with plenty of interesting sidelights and enough cop angst to satisfy any stickler for realism. For a novice, Dee manipulates the entangled plots of this police procedural with a surprisingly sure hand.
Pub Date: July 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-446-51770-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1994
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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