by Fred Rexroad ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 15, 2019
Enjoyable writing and effective detective work stand out in this series entry.
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On a family ski trip, two middle school gumshoes try to solve the mystery of stolen Olympic medals in this fourth installment of a series.
For best friends Whiz Tanner and Joey Dent, both 12, visiting a ski lodge with their families is the first vacation they’ve had since starting their detective agency earlier in the school year. But as readers of this series might expect, detective work finds them. Former Olympic skiers Harrison Revel and his brother, Benjamin, helped build the Marsh River Mountain Ski Resort; on display in the lobby are their three medals of bronze, silver, and gold. A small crowd gathers as Harrison opens the case and shows the medals to the kids. That night, the lodge gets snowed in by a blizzard—and in the morning, the medals are missing. The case that held them is discovered in the garbage, but that’s the only clue, because the lobby’s security cameras are down. The Tanner-Dent Detective Agency swings into action with some help from Madilynn and her younger brother, Wyatt, other kids at the resort. They develop and whittle down a list of suspects, lift fingerprints, and set a trap for the most likely culprit. Can they prevent him from fleeing with the loot? Rexroad (Whiz Tanner and the Mysterious Countdown, 2019, etc.) varies his winning formula with a new setting outside the Jasper Springs Museum, a good way to keep things fresh, with the snowed-in lodge providing a reason that adult authorities can’t get involved. The briskly moving story shows solid sleuthing in the details of acquiring fingerprints, checking alibis, and eliminating suspects. It’s not groundbreaking—the super-glue method of raising prints has been around for decades, for example—but it’s realistic. These well-described scenes help make up for an absent feature of the adventure series, the fancy Tanner-Dent crime lab. The two friends make a good team; Joey’s regular-kid narrative voice contrasts well with Whiz’s precise diction and large vocabulary. Joey also brings courage and ability to action scenes.
Enjoyable writing and effective detective work stand out in this series entry.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-946650-05-4
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Awesome Quest Mysteries
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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PERSPECTIVES
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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