The first volume in Scerbanenco’s Milano Quartet is a blast from the past, a sleek, stripped-down reminder of the fast,...
A disgraced doctor’s ticket to redemption requires him to rescue a young man even more lost than he is in this slice of noir first served in Italy in 1966 and finally translated into English.
After helping a dying patient into the great beyond, Duca Lamberti was struck off the medical register and sentenced to three years in prison. But he didn’t lose all his friends, and now one of them, Milan’s Superintendent Luigi Carrua, has set him up with a new job upon his release. The assignment seems simple: to wean celebrated engineer Pietro Auseri’s son Davide, 22, from the bottle. But Duca immediately sees that normal therapies won’t keep the troubled young man sober for long, and a suicide attempt the first night Duca’s on the job tells him that Davide’s carrying a heavier burden than alcoholism. It’s not long before the boy reveals his terrible secret: He failed to prevent the death of shop assistant Alberta Radelli a year ago, after she hitched a ride with him and they impulsively drove to the countryside and made love. Although Alberta begged this intimate stranger to take her away instantly, that very day, he drove her back toward Milan instead and dropped her at the side of the road, and there she was found, her wrists slit, the following day. Luckily for Davide, Duca, reviewing the evidence surrounding the case, realizes that Alberta’s death was no suicide, and he identifies the best possible therapy for what ails Davide: solving her murder.
The first volume in Scerbanenco’s Milano Quartet is a blast from the past, a sleek, stripped-down reminder of the fast, brutal days of Continental noir. Sensitive souls will notice that the author’s attitude toward the LGBT community has dated in more glaring ways.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61219-335-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Lecter emerges as one of the great villains of thrillerdom, and this novel, likely to garner a huge readership, as one of...
With this stunning sequel to his 1981 blockbuster, Red Dragon, Harris (Black Sunday, 1975) seals his reputation as a thriller-master by delivering a deeply involving, blood-freezing tale of a young female F.B.I. trainee on the trail of a serial killer.
The premise of Red Dragon was its detective's ability to sympathize with the killer he sought. Here, Harris reverses thematic gears, finding an unbridgeable chasm between good and evil. On the side of light stand spunky heroine Candice Starling and her compassionate FBI boss, Jack Crawford; in the darkness dwell two indelible creations: rampaging serial killer "Buffalo Bill"—so-nicknamed because he skins the women he kills—and homicidal genius Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a minor figure from Red Dragon here expanded into the very embodiment of self-knowing evil. With no clues to Bill's identity, a desperate Crawford sends Starling to the madhouse where Lecter, an expert on the criminally insane, is imprisoned. Will the insane psychologist help ferret out Bill? Yes, but at a price: Starling must reveal a personal secret for each sliver of advice. In a series of chilling meetings, Starling strips her psyche bare; Lecter responds by toying with her, feeding helpful but inconclusive clues. Meanwhile, Bill—a walking nightmare busy making a human suit out of the skins he harvests—kidnaps a congresswoman's daughter, dumping her into a pit in his basement. The congresswoman learns of Lecter's help and offers him a deal: identify Bill—a former patient of his—and Lector will be transferred to a room with a view. Sadistically, Lecter coughs up a false name—and then escapes during his transfer in an orgy of killing. As the clock winds down, Starling and Crawford race to find Bill—a race that culminates in an ultratense, violent confrontation between Starling and the madman in his lair—while Lecter connives to stay free; will he return to cast his long, black shadow in yet another sequel? A tour de force of suspense, dark and polished as onyx.
Lecter emerges as one of the great villains of thrillerdom, and this novel, likely to garner a huge readership, as one of the most gripping reads of the year.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 1988
ISBN: 978-0-312-02282-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1988
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An unsettling, often scary account of how memory loss affects a strong woman’s life.
A coffeehouse manager awakens on a park bench minus much of her memory.
Clare Cosi wakes up stiff and cold in Washington Square Park. Though there are lots of things she doesn’t remember, she does know that she’ll be safe at the Village Blend coffeehouse, where she’s greeted with joy and told that she’s been missing for four days. When her ex-husband, Matteo Allegro, and his mother, Madame Blanche Allegro Dubois, the coffee shop's owner, arrive on the scene, they realize she’s forgotten the last 15 years of her life and thinks she’s living in New Jersey with her young daughter, Joy. Hospitalized, she fails to recognize both Joy, now a grown-up, and her current fiance, Detective Mike Quinn. Celebrity psychiatrist Dr. Dominic Lorca takes over Clare’s care and insists she be moved to an upstate facility. Despite pulling every string available, Mike can’t free her from Lorca even though she’s a witness in the case of missing heiress Annette Brewster. Clare, no shrinking violet, pretends to take her drugs but is dying for a cup of coffee. Madame Blanche, Matteo, and Tucker Burton, the Village Blend’s assistant manager, hatch a plan to bust Clare free and find a place where she can be relaxed and open to stimuli that will help revive her memory. But Clare is loath to go with Matteo, who cheated on her repeatedly, even though their current relationship is good. Talking with her friends evokes memories of her past detective work (Shot in the Dark, 2018, etc.), and she struggles to relive her most recent days, some of which she spent with Annette, who’d arranged a private tasting of wedding cakes in the hotel she owns. Clare, Mike, and Matteo end up hiding out in the Hamptons from the police and a killer who’s stalking her.
An unsettling, often scary account of how memory loss affects a strong woman’s life.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-451-48887-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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