The author of Skin Deep (1989) this time takes as his protagonist a bright but annoying Berkeley Ph.D. student who uncovers an anthropological gold mine in the cities and remote countryside of Mexico. Brian Mendoza catalogs museum artifacts in Mexico City at Templo Mayor, the sanctum of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, while he pursues his research on ritual sacrifice. He is the kind of pompous grad student who interrupts his professors' lectures, and his arrogant attitude immediately sets him at odds with his supervisor, Arturo Torres, into whose office he sneaks at night to read the translation of the Xotl codex. This tells the story of the fall of Aztec empire to the Spaniards and the flight of Xotl, a priest of the god Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, who was overthrown but vowed to someday return and reclaim his rightful throne. Ascertaining Xotl's destination and the mysterious bundle he transported could solve a 400-year-old anthropological puzzle and help a turbulent country reassert its identity in time to welcome the new dawn for Mexico that Quetzalcoatl prophesied. Brian theorizes that Xotl headed toward the Yucat†n; despite the hostile presence of government soldiers and Mayan rebels, he heads there with Greg Stone, an old Berkeley roommate, and Marina Soto, a local journalist with whom he falls in and out of love. His progress is followed closely by two powerful Mexico City rivals, Professor Xavier Zapata, director of Templo Mayor, and Alejandro Villalobos, a wealthy businessman with an acute understanding of Aztec culture. As his academic research assumes political dimensions that he could never have imagined, Brian reconnects with his Mexican heritage, which teaches him more about himself and the father he lost as a young boy. With the help of his sophisticated lover and renewed ties with his family, he even becomes slightly less stubborn. A solid story skillfully blending mysticism with historical fact.
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-86479-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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