An engaging, light read spiced with Big Easy irreverence.
In Sanchez’s (Exploration’s End, 2018, etc.) third mystery-series installment, thespian and part-time sleuth Jeff Chaussier returns to New Orleans, prepared to marry his fiancee—before their world turns upside down.
Jeff wakes up next to his girlfriend, Bryna, still disoriented after a flight from London following an acting tour. He evidently overindulged in liquid courage during his trans-Atlantic journey—or was he drugged? When the doorbell rings, Bryna heads downstairs and, within moments, someone kidnaps her. Frantic and naked, Jeff runs into the street, but she’s nowhere to be found. He calls the police, but when a rookie cop talks disrespectfully about Bryna, Jeff becomes violent, leading to his arrest. After his release, the distraught hero goes on a lengthy drunken binge that lands him in the hospital. Because Jeff is the narrator of this tale, readers, for better or worse, share his detox experience as well as his recovery with the help of friends in a support group. The section describing Jeff’s delirium offers a visceral portrait of his temporarily tortured psyche, but it also indulges in a lengthy tangent. Finally, healed in body if not quite in soul, Jeff embarks on the journey to rescue Bryana. Fortunately, many people who have his back, including his three brothers, Charley, Space, and BroBoo; New Orleans Police Capt. Ramirez; and other longtime friends. He also gets the protection of a mysterious, powerful family whose daughter and granddaughter he helped return in the previous series installment. Once Jeff gets his mojo back, there’s enough action to keep the narrative interesting, including a few shootouts. The large, diverse, and eccentric cast also provides plenty of amusing entertainment throughout. Although readers will certainly benefit from reading the series in sequence, Sanchez does his due diligence in catching readers up on past events, and as a result, the novel can be enjoyed as a stand-alone. The author ends the story with a surprising cliffhanger, leading fans to the next installment.
An engaging, light read spiced with Big Easy irreverence.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72380-777-0
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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