A disappointing second effort from Barr (Backpack, Jan. 2002), not helped a bit by the snotty tone.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
Lina Pritchett reasons that no one will ever find her in Craggy Rock, one of the most remote hamlets in Australia. She’s dyed her hair and settled down with a good man named Tony, who has no way of knowing that she’s actually Daisy Fraser, vilified in the British tabloids a decade ago as a murderer, purveyor of a lethal overdose to Giles de Montfort (“one of those Hugh Grant-type boys”). Her ten-year-old son Red—she always said she adopted him from wandering hippies in India—and Tony, an opal miner and man of few words, would rather watch TV than argue with her. She’s pregnant again, so she’s got a roight to act a little crazy, roight? Life goes on, and Lina figures she’s probably safe forever. But then Sophie, best friend from way back, comes to the outback for a family wedding and recognizes Lina/Daisy. Worse: Sophie is dating a sleazy tabloid reporter who desperately needs a big story to jump-start his sagging career. Lawrence Golchin springs forth from his London lair, hot on the trail of this old, cold case, and pounces on Daisy, harassing her and her family mercilessly. Turns out that Daisy ran around with the wrong crowd when she was a troubled young ballerina at the Royal Academy. Giles never should have injected the speed she gave him, and she really isn’t responsible for what happened. But she must set things right with Mum and Dad back in dismal old England, plus have a heart-to-heart with Sophie, who was utterly shattered when she thought Daisy had thrown herself off a bridge after the scandal broke. Will the Aussies extradite Lina on murder charges even though she’s preggers? Did she really adopt Red from wandering hippies, or is he Giles’s son? Will she have to go back to her real hair color?
A disappointing second effort from Barr (Backpack, Jan. 2002), not helped a bit by the snotty tone.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2003
ISBN: 0-452-28382-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Plume
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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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