Thomas is a robust storyteller, with a shipshape plot that would please any mariner. Fast-moving, suspenseful fun.
Find the Frenchman! A stirring chase across England after an escaped French convict is the stuff of this second installment in a projected trilogy of the Napoleonic Wars (The Blighted Cliffs, 2004).
The year is 1806. Young Martin Jerrold has now been promoted to naval captain, in charge of 800 French prisoners on a hulk, a stripped-down vessel docked at Chatham. This suits Jerrold just fine. It keeps him out of naval action (nothing beats self-preservation) and allows frequent visits by his mistress Isobel. But disaster looms. Jerrold’s interpreter, the prisoner Dumont, escapes, dressed in Isobel’s clothes, just as an imperious Horse Guards officer, Major Lebrett, arrives, demanding to see Dumont, who possesses some hugely important papers. On learning of Dumont’s escape, Lebrett relieves Jerrold of his command. By now Dumont is en route to London, as is the unfortunate Jerrold, summoned to a meeting at the Admiralty. There the First Lord also emphasizes the importance of catching Dumont. Even the royal family is involved. Lebrett is working for the Prince of Wales, while the Admiralty supports the King. Jerrold is caught in the middle of factional intrigue, and Lebrett is his nemesis. Still, he has a happy-go-lucky temperament and a powerful ally in Nevell, a kind of secret-service operative. The pair almost capture Dumont in London, but he escapes again. here follows a wild journey to Plymouth, across desolate Dartmoor, with Lebrett a constant threat. Soon there will be a shootout on the beach; a dramatic meeting at the Brighton Pavilion between Jerrold and the Prince’s mistress, who will reveal the secret of Dumont’s papers; and a final showdown at sea, from which Jerrold will emerge with credit.
Thomas is a robust storyteller, with a shipshape plot that would please any mariner. Fast-moving, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-32513-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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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