California disc-jockey (and former rock star) Kihn brings back Beau Young of the Stone Savages from Big Rock Beat (1998) The author’s recipe is simple: take Nan and Ivan Lyons’ deliciously droll mystery, Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (1976); replace cooks with black American bluesmen. Vincent Shives, an albino guitarist as yet unfledged by playing in public, goes to New Orleans, where an ancient black zombie woman for $5,000 sells him the Mojo Hand, a mummified, severed human appendage that seems not quite dead. Beau has dropped rock ‘n’ roll to recover from a coke habit and play the blues with legendary harpist Oakland Slim. Suddenly Slim’s buddies among the giants—Red Tunney, Art Spivey, and B. Bobby Bost—are being murdered, opened up like cans of tomato soup by some sort of claw. Yes, it’s the Mojo Hand, which climbs out of its shoebox while Vincent is sleeping and goes off to murder his rivals. Divorced Beau falls in with Annie Sweeney, owner/writer of Bluesworthy magazine, and begins his own investigation of the murders, drawing on his new friendship with a fan who happens to be an assistant medical examiner in San Francisco. Meanwhile, a man claiming to be long-dead blues colossus Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil 43 years ago, tries to establish his legal right to royalties from recordings of his music by the Crawling Kingsnakes and their big-lipped leader Rick Dagger (yes, the Stones and Mick). Since that group happens to be recording demos in Sausalito, why not have “Robert Johnson” prove his identity by playing with their lead guitarist, Heath Pritchard (Keith who?), who knows Robert Johnson’s every note? If he does prove out, what will Vincent and the Mojo Hand have to say about this new zombie on the block? No question, blues players and fans will dig these chords, which reverb with Kihn’s now familiar shimmer.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-87246-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
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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