Leonard goes back to his mots, and modern America's, in this rollicking Cuban western/suspenser, to be published on the 100th anniverary of the U.S.S. Maine's explosion. All Ben Tyler is looking for is to make a few fast dollars. Cowpunching in Arizona hasn't worked, or robbing banks either, so he agrees to join his friend Charlie Burke in exporting a string of horses to Cuba, though he just can't see how they stand to make any money on the deal. Unfortunately, Ben and Charlie have picked a historically bad moment for their tropical excursion: They make port just in time to remember the Maine indeed, and suddenly there are more complications than just paying prohibitive import duties, bribing officials and gobetweens, and holding their buyer—impassive, treacherous, polo-playing sugar baron Roland Boudreanx—to the price he's promised them. The US is determined to free Cuba from Spanish rule, but not so completely that the island will be independent—only enough so that American capitalists can step into the breach. In other words, the three-cornered conflict—which Ben & Co. waste no time adding more corners to—is nothing more than a classic Leonard seam writ large, the perfect background for the easygoing hero's lesser chicanery. Before Ben can begin to finger the goodies, though, a little disagreement between him and a Spanish hussar with easily inflamed honor lands him in prison along with a Marine casualty of the Maine who's been spirited out of the hospital, it seems, for the express purpose of rotting in jail. All would be lost if it weren't for Rollie Boudreaux's wide-awake courtesan Amelia Brown, who's got the world's best motive for breaking Ben out of stir. Carbines blazing, horses snorting, battles raging, the heroes drive the villains to a stalemate—and then prepare to battle each other. Top entertainment from the pro's pro (Out of Sight, 1996, etc.): a million greedy schemes with time-outs for war and sex.
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-32383-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
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
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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