A smart, steadfast gumshoe who, in her second book, continues to flourish.
An amateur sleuth initiates her own investigation when she believes the drowning of her sister’s childhood friend, a competitive swimmer, is anything but accidental in this thriller.
Fortyish Trisha Carson is working part time at a ballpark and living with her younger sister, Lena, near San Francisco. Trisha also helps out at a swim clinic led by her sister’s friend Shari Grantner, where Lena is an instructor. After hearing of Shari’s death by reputed drowning, Trisha suspects foul play, particularly once she learns the body shows signs of struggle. She’s confident enough to look into the possible murder herself; after all, she solved a swimming-related homicide just last year. This time, there’s a slew of potential killers: Shari’s little brother, Mitch, threatened her for keeping him from the family fortune, and her relationship with boyfriend Duncan had been dwindling. Clues, meanwhile, roll in, including a pile of X-rated photos and the mysterious man appearing in some. Things get dicier when a stranger accosts Trisha and warns her about her nosiness, followed soon thereafter by a second death—another apparent accident. Trisha is nonetheless determined to find a murderer and hopefully without injury to herself or someone she knows. Carroll’s (Dead in the Water, 2013) writing bounces off the page, as even non-swimmers will easily grasp the aquatic details (Each time Lena “flip turned at my end of the pool and streamlined off the wall, I could see her anxiety fade”). Trisha has a curious back story: Dad abandoned the family over two decades earlier and her husband voluntarily but inexplicably disappeared. Her equally unusual investigative method involves making a copy of Shari’s apartment key and snatching a few of the dead woman’s (pertinent) things. But while the suspect list and distrust among characters run entertainingly high, the plot is occasionally muddled. An individual’s arrest, for example, doesn’t entail a murder charge, which Trisha contradicts later, and the narrative ends with a still unclear motive for a killing.
A smart, steadfast gumshoe who, in her second book, continues to flourish.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991109-0-4
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Beachbreak Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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