The heroine’s second outing (Imogene in New Orleans, 2014), packed with zany characters, nicely captures the feeling of a...
A road trip to a Florida mermaid theme park goes terribly wrong.
Imogene; her hypochondriac son, Billy; her sister, Agnes; Billy's life partner, Jackson; and their bulldog, Goose, have driven from their Alabama home to Clear Springs Park expecting a relaxing vacation. Things go wrong from the start when their ride on a glass-bottom boat gives them a clear view of a body floating in the water. Capt. Stedman has just finished telling them the ancient tale of a pair of star-crossed lovers found dead together in the part of the river since christened the Bridal Chamber. He didn't even mention the body of Grant Scroggins, which was found floating in the river in 1972. When the dead man John Kent’s wallet is found in Goose’s baby carriage, Billy is arrested, and Jackson is frantic to get him released. Imogene and Agnes, who are made of tougher fabric, decide to do a little sleuthing on their own. They steal a golf cart, adopt a wild baby monkey, and dig into the murky past of Capt. Stedman and former mermaid Esther Wiggins, Clear Springs events coordinator. They also meet the photographer who made the park famous; the love of his life, a former mermaid in the nearby water park for African-Americans; a tough-talking current mermaid; and the wife and son of John Kent , who were on the boat when his body was discovered. Imogene, who’s sure that all these people hiding past secrets are better suspects than Billy, plans to prove that one of them is the real killer.
The heroine’s second outing (Imogene in New Orleans, 2014), packed with zany characters, nicely captures the feeling of a Florida water park. But the mystery is scattershot, and it takes forever to unveil the killer.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9909792-9-6
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Rolltop Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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
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
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