Great fare for lovers of police stories and a dead-on accurate portrayal of the era’s attitudes toward women.
The NYPD's "No Girls Allowed" sign fades in this fictional account of a real woman’s struggle for respect and success in a profession that men wanted all to themselves.
Men wanted all the manly stuff, anyway, like murders and armed robberies. The New York City Policewomen’s Bureau gave the gentler gender something to do, like arresting pickpockets, shoplifters, and hookers. But policewomen wanted more. In 1958, Marie Carrara (in real life, Marie Cirile) is a “handpicked gal,” chosen by her boss to assist male detectives in robbery stakeouts and drug buys. Note: assist only. “Girls can’t be real police, baby,” Marie’s cop husband, Sid, tells their daughter. “They stay inside, so they can’t get hurt.” Former NYPD detective Conlon's (Red on Red, 2011, etc.) novel follows the growth of a career and the disintegration of a marriage. In 1955, Marie joins in family laughter about the idea of “she-cops” who “might as well join the circus.” Then she passes the policewomen’s civil service exam and never looks back. Over the years she takes on difficult cases and realizes she isn't "a kid anymore, but a cop on a job.” In her marriage, Sid cheats while Marie would no more stray than be a Soviet spy. And he frequently beats her, which she puts up with for years. “You’re nothing without me,” he tells her, which cannot be further from the truth. They’re traditional Italian Catholics, and the word “divorce” would give their parents the vapors. So for a long time Marie publicly pretends to be in love with Sid. But she tells his lover on the phone, “Pick him up in the next hour, and I’ll give you a free toaster.” Meanwhile, day by day, she earns professional respect and eventually earns promotion to detective. There are no dramatic set pieces in the novel, yet it’s an engaging drama with cinematic potential. Society was on the cusp of major change, and the Policewomen’s Bureau would disappear in the early 1970s when people became police officers instead of policewomen and policemen.
Great fare for lovers of police stories and a dead-on accurate portrayal of the era’s attitudes toward women.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948924-07-8
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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