A mingling of spiritual insights and chilling crime.
Police search for a serial rapist whose urges escalate to murder in this faith-based detective novel.
Christian author Watson’s (Mirrors: Real Stories of People Who Transform Pain to Joy and Turmoil to Peace, 2012) first novel begins with the brutal rape of Elizabeth Evans in October 1996. Although she spent most of her life in California, Elizabeth had recently moved back to her hometown of Atlanta. Following his sister’s assault, Elizabeth’s brother, private investigator Will Evans, joins forces with his childhood friend Victor, the lead investigator on the rape case. Assisting the two and counseling Elizabeth is psychologist Del Thomas, another grade school friend and a woman of deep faith who believes God answers all questions asked of Him and whose “beauty and style gave her a ticket to go most anywhere she wanted.” Elizabeth is still in danger; the rapist believes that unlike his other victims, she could identify him. After the rapist tries and fails to kill Elizabeth in her hospital bed, she is moved to a long-term care facility for traumatized victims, where she receives extensive counseling and bonds with her art therapy instructor, Stella. Ten years prior, Stella came to the facility and became a practicing Christian, and she tells Elizabeth that her healing was aided by teachings in the Bible. As Elizabeth continues her own physical and emotional recovery, the rapist stalks the police assigned to the investigation and dreams of “a new wall of trophies” from murder victims who would include Lucky, a blackmailing security guard who witnessed him trying to kill Elizabeth in the hospital. The hunt to identify the rapist before he lashes out turns heart-pounding, but a subplot about Victor’s wife checks the action. Additionally off-putting are occasional pronoun troubles and missing commas. But never in question is the author’s belief in the healing power of the Christian message.
A mingling of spiritual insights and chilling crime.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1489703705
Page Count: 356
Publisher: LifeRichPublishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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