Police chases and social commentary come together in this rollicking murder story about an affluent family torn apart by...
A killer and his girlfriend go on the run from the FBI in this crime novel.
Arthur McPhee is the owner of a successful wine and spirits business that operates many liquor stores in the Northeast. He lives in the tony enclave of Whispering Hills, Connecticut, a “bed and breakfast town where only the very wealthy could afford to live.” His younger son, Donald, who is gainfully employed in the family business, is getting married, while his older son, Droogan, is practically middle-aged, unemployed, disheveled, overweight, and smokes crack. Arthur is horrified by Droogan’s listlessness, having watched him “flunking out of college and then flunking out of life.” Droogan enters into a romantic entanglement with Angela, one of the household’s black maids. Arthur tries to buy off Angela so that she won’t marry Droogan, and she readily accepts the money. Meanwhile, Arthur’s third wife, Sabrina, harbors a secret hatred of her husband. She enlists Droogan in a plan to kill Arthur for his money, which the son agrees to do because he is so upset about his father trying to pay off Angela. When Droogan accidentally kills the wrong person, he and Angela skip town, attempting to flee to Canada. Pursued by the formidable Agent Roderigo Rojas of the FBI and a mercenary named the Spartan, Droogan slips into a shadowy religious cult, where his problems begin to multiply. Havel (The Orphan of Mecca, 2015, etc.) packs a good deal into his novel, which at first glance may appear to be a simple crime story. Murdering a family member to get his money is an old routine, but the author develops the book’s diverse characters in a layered enough way to give the story more substance than its lighthearted tone would indicate. Themes of interracial or interreligious marriage predominate, from both a black and white perspective. Havel seems interested in whether the American take on group politics is universal and whether crossing lines leads to ruin. As the body count increases, readers learn more about Rojas and some troubled members of the cult, leading to a climax that is a bit far-fetched but still a lot of fun.
Police chases and social commentary come together in this rollicking murder story about an affluent family torn apart by greed, prejudice, and its own foibles.Pub Date: May 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-68122-840-2
Page Count: 430
Publisher: America Star Books
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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