Ill-gotten, naturally blue pearls and restless spirits draw a San Francisco gem-dealer and his impetuous artist girlfriend to Burma, Thailand, and the warm but awfully dangerous waters of the Andaman Sea—as Browne (Hot Siberian, 1989; Stone 588, 1986, etc.) continues to rummage through the jewelry box. Lying in the blue sands of an uncharted lagoon somewhere off the coast of southern Asia, a bunch of oysters has been building up a fortune in true-blue pearls. The accidental discovery of those oysters is fatal for a couple of Japanese pearl-diving women on hire to a vicious French thug who, preferring not to share the prize, murders the women. Decades later, the understandably vengeful soul of one of the divers enters the inexplicably suicidal body of sexy, clever California artist Julia Elkins after her cute- meet with newly separated, pearl-fancying Grady Bowman. (Bowman, having been dumped by his wife and fired by his ex-father-in-law, is setting up his own gem business.) After a massive dose of barbiturates fails to do its stuff, the revitalized Julia begins an affair with Bowman, surprising him and herself with a sudden taste for and knowledge of Japanese cuisine and a deep desire to accompany him on his next shopping trip to the Far East. A series of disastrous deals in Rangoon and Julia's spur-of-the-moment desire for blue pearls lead the couple to Bangkok and a gem-cutting shop owned by the son of one of the murdered pearl divers—and then to the isolated Siamese estate and oyster farm of Japan's greatest pearl-dealer where spirits, murderers, shoppers, and dealers sort it all out. Few people do sexy, grown-up romance as well as Browne—which is why he can get away with outrageous stuff like roving spirits.
Pub Date: March 12, 1993
ISBN: 0-446-51661-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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