An enjoyable, sexy, light mystery with likable characters.
An actor and amateur sleuth returns to the Crescent City to deal with a family complication in this second installment of a series.
Jeff Chaussier has been away from New Orleans for the past few years, plying his trade on the Midwestern theater circuit and trying to keep himself distracted from thoughts of Bryna, the girl he left behind: “Really, it was my reluctance to face her hurt and anger that kept me far up the Mississippi.” Now, his mother and Aunt Marie are worried that Jeff’s cousin Cal, Marie’s son, is in some sort of trouble. He is enrolled at a university, is involved in a theatrical production, and may have a girlfriend. But “his behavior had changed and he had become secretive. He kept odd hours and his comings and goings were erratic and hard to chart.” As Jeff begins nosing around, he finds himself immersed in another chaotic and dangerous caper that includes a very tempting gastronomic tour of New Orleans’ hidden treasures. He seeks help and advice from his family and an impressive array of quirky friends, including an ex-Marine and his wife, also a former Marine, who own and perform in a female impersonator club. Everybody seems to know something but no one offers enough clues to solve the Cal puzzle. And, of course, there’s the beautiful Bryna, whom Jeff finally seeks out only to discover her with a baby girl. He assumes she has moved on without him. Add in drug dealers flooding the city with their wares and a mysterious missing young woman, not to mention an abundance of reasonably tasteful bedroom scenes, and the tale delivers plenty of action to keep the novel engaging. While the story has a few loose threads, Sanchez (Lit by Lightning, 2014, etc.) creates appealing characters and vivid images, his prose elevated by a flair for the absurd: “A cigar and a Marine tattoo did not go well with a blonde wig and mascara, but Tommy was between shows.” Still, many female readers are likely to find Jeff’s frequent playful slapping of Bryna’s naked derriere (she always “yelps”) less than amusing.
An enjoyable, sexy, light mystery with likable characters.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72380-970-5
Page Count: 267
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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