A well-written story that would benefit from a little less talk and a lot more action.
A butchered and bagged body shatters a spiritual community’s peace in California.
In Cyrus’ debut novel, sandals-wearing Father Ambrose didn’t expect to assist in a murder investigation. But as the abbot of the New Life Ecumenical Retreat, he also didn’t imagine a young woman’s dismembered body would find its way onto the community’s property. New Life boasts 25 nuns and 20 monks living on about 250 acres. In addition to meditating, the group grows, harvests, and sells wholesale and online fruit and other crops produced on its land. Because the deceased had tats, black fingernail polish, and spiky hair, it seems unlikely she was associated with a New Life resident. But Sheriff Charlie Cormley takes nothing for granted as New Life has a lot of people “who’ll cover for each other. And a lot of property to hide stuff on.” But it’s Father Ambrose who discovers that the dead woman knew one of the group’s monks. He might even have gotten her pregnant, with her condition confirmed by the medical examiner, who grins as she suggests whoever opened the bag of body parts must have had the smell “hit ’em right between the eyes.” It seems odd that any sorrowful feelings Father Ambrose, a spiritual man known for having visions, may have toward the victim appear superseded by his regret that the murder will alter the tranquility of his community, especially during harvest season. Fear of bad press also concerns him. Although the book is labeled The First Father Ambrose Mystery, Cormley holds center stage with the abbot. Characterization of both men is strong, as is that of the sheriff’s wife, Ruth, who refuses to turn on the insect zapper on buggy nights if Father Ambrose is visiting because he cringes “every time one of those little guys goes up in flames.” The interactions between characters are skillfully rendered, as is the dialogue. A third of the way through the tale comes the news that New Life is not a Roman Catholic monastery, but rather a community formed by former Catholics who believe strongly in meditation. Although it begins with the yikes factor of a body in a bag, the mystery becomes watered down by repetition of New Life’s dogma and the concerns of those who live outside the mainstream.
A well-written story that would benefit from a little less talk and a lot more action.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9977560-6-7
Page Count: 404
Publisher: Square Root Press LLC
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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