A winning whodunit, but one that could have used more medical investigation.
In Young’s debut thriller, the discovery of two still-bleeding dead bodies on two different continents offers investigators a medical anomaly—and a murder mystery.
New York City police detective Sean O’Reilly doesn’t know what to make of his latest crime scene. A man at the Plaza Hotel is most definitely dead, but that hasn’t stopped his lifeless body from continuing to bleed. Confounded pathologists seek help from colleagues, which not only reveals a similar case in Switzerland, but also brings in Los Angeles hematologist Dr. Andy Friedman, who specializes in coagulation disorders. Andy and fellow physician Leila Baker look for a connection between the two dead men: the CEO of a health insurance company and a pharmaceutical company executive. But the doctors, working as amateur sleuths, soon realize that the case involves many other people, and a staggering number of dark secrets. Although the posthumous hemorrhaging certainly hints at a medical mystery, Young tends to play down the medical aspect. Instead, he skillfully fleshes out the investigative side of the story, starting with the dead men’s companies, and gradually fills out the pool of suspects. By the end, the story is gleefully convoluted, bouncing suspicion from one character to the next (and sometimes back again). However, its potentially intriguing medical element is surprisingly lacking; Andy and Leila focus their investigation almost exclusively on the killer’s motive, despite that fact that cops ask for their help to explain how the people were killed. O’Reilly and his partner, Detective Jose Alvarez, eventually send the docs to Switzerland, Norway and Scotland to interrogate probable murderers, and even bring them along when executing a search warrant. Young does provide a reason for the corpses, but it’s a little too simple, and doesn’t quite explain the bleeding. The budding romance between Andy and Leila, though, is absorbing; Andy’s reluctance to dive into a long-term relationship has nothing to do with professionalism, but with religion: She’s Muslim and he’s Jewish. Neither their relationship nor the inevitable solution to the mystery offer easy answers, and both are left open to readers’ interpretations.
A winning whodunit, but one that could have used more medical investigation.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483420639
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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