Leonard toys with the crime genre now like an old tomcat with a favorite ball—batting it around with languid, skilled strokes, putting on nifty new spins. Here, with a nod to his early days as a writer of westerns, he pits a Stetson-wearing US marshal against a bunch of mafiosi, tracing their tanglings from Miami Beach to Rapallo. The Italian scenes, in fact, are Leonard's first to be set overseas and not only relieve him from his usual Miami/Detroit venue but allow him to paint moments of wanton cruelty as he contrasts the savage native Italian mafia with its tame American cousin. Representative of the US branch is Dade County godfather Jimmy "Cap" Capotorto, who's grown slow and fat but survives through the hard muscle of "the Zip," an ambitious Italian import. Jimmy Cap sends the Zip to check on veteran bookie Harry Arno, whom he suspects of skimming. Harry has been cheating, actually, and when Jimmy Cap sends a second-string hit man to kill him, Harry pulls the trigger first and is corralled by the feds, who want to turn him against Jimmy Cap. Ironically, Harry's babysitter turns out to be Raylan Givens, the same laconic marshal whom Harry skipped out on years back—and now Harry pulls the same trick again, heading for Rapallo, with Givens and the Zip following close behind. Although the Zip struts tall in his homeland and exults in shaming the pumped-up but cowardly Italian-American apprentice Jimmy Cap's forced on him, Givens shows him up by finding Harry first—and thus unintentionally goads the Zip into a coldblooded murder, a murder that Givens won't forget and that finally has him, back in the States, after squirreling Harry to safety, giving the Zip 24 hours, then 30 minutes, then two minutes, then ten seconds, to leave the county—or else. Spaghetti western a la Leonard—full of gusto and not to be missed.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-30846-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
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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