The plot stalls at times, but Vasquez (In the Heat, 2008, etc.) writes with a winning combination of grit and heart.
Blackmail and buried secrets pit two brothers against each other.
In crime-ridden Belize City, Leo Varela and his brother Patrick watch police examine the body of their father’s right-hand man, the Rev, shot at close range while only half-dressed. Cut to Miami more than a decade later, where aspiring poet Leo lives with pregnant girlfriend Tessa and works as an attendant at a mental-health facility while county commissioner Patrick campaigns for mayor with trophy wife Celina. Potential disaster arrives in the rumpled person of Freddy Robinson, a shady character from the brothers’ years in Belize. Freddy firmly requests that Leo arrange a meeting between himself and elderly schizophrenic patient Herman Massini. After consulting Patrick, who presents a facade of nonchalance that he immediately sees through, Leo suggests a wait-and-see attitude. As both brothers take independent action, periodic flashbacks fill in the dark details surrounding the murder of the Rev, so called because of his status as a defrocked priest. Leo and Patrick’s father Ivan shared a small criminal empire and an affinity for young boys, a secret that Patrick discovered but never shared with his brother. Patrick also knows more about the Rev’s murder than he’s telling. While Patrick hires muscle to deal with either Freddy or Massini, Leo devises a tricky plot to sneak the old man out of the hospital. Game on.
The plot stalls at times, but Vasquez (In the Heat, 2008, etc.) writes with a winning combination of grit and heart.Pub Date: June 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-37810-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A forced effort to leverage interest around the legendary Chelsea Hotel, this novel is a miss.
Perennial Broadway understudy Hazel Ripley and center-stage bombshell Maxine Mead formed a close bond as performers touring with the USO during World War ll. Now that they’ve been home for five years, can their friendship survive the McCarthy-era witch hunt for Communists in show business?
Davis (The Masterpiece, 2018, etc.) has built her brand crafting historical fiction set at New York landmarks like the Barbizon Hotel, the Dakota apartment building, and Grand Central Terminal. Now readers are taken behind the doors of the storied Chelsea Hotel, a creative oasis for artists and freethinkers, as Hazel and Maxine try to navigate the Broadway theater scene. While Hazel has never enjoyed success onstage, she discovers a talent for playwriting and directing. Her career is off to a promising start, especially since bestie Maxine has agreed to use her star power as a box office draw for Hazel’s show. Their drama unfolds offstage when both women are named on a list of Communist sympathizers and must testify about suspected anti-American activities. With a high-stakes storyline that should be tension-filled, the novel unfortunately features prose that is expository and flat. Maxine’s diary confessionals fail to give any insight into her inner life and seem only to serve as information downloads. Even revelations that should shock evoke a tepid response, probably because the buildup has been so noncompelling. Thankfully, Hazel’s relationships—with everyone from her mother to a private investigator working in tandem with the FBI—are more engaging and complex. Notably absent from the cast list, though, is the Chelsea Hotel itself. In Davis’ previous novels, the setting plays an integral role in the storyline. Here, though, the sparse descriptions of the site seem to be almost an afterthought. Hazel and Maxine could have been living at a Holiday Inn and it would have had no effect on the telling.
A forced effort to leverage interest around the legendary Chelsea Hotel, this novel is a miss.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4458-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good guy outsmarts a venomous viper, outguns a gazillion villains—and falls in love with a nice gal. Continuing at loose ends after being separated from the Army (the peace dividend, you know), former MP Major Jack Reacher (Die Trying, 1998, etc.) is down in Key West rather enjoying irresponsibility—until a private investigator shows up looking for him. The following day the p.i. turns up dead, fingertips sliced off for the purpose of preserving his incognito. Something nefarious is going on here, Reacher concludes, stirred by a burst of the old action-hero adrenaline. All he knows for sure, however, is that the detective was hired by a Ms. Jacob. Pause for a deductive leap or two, then on to New York to track down the mysterious Ms. Jacob. But what’s in a name? It soon develops that Ms. J isn’t mysterious at all. In fact, she’s an old friend. Before she was married, the Ms. J., now divorced, was a J already—Jodie Garber, daughter of General Garber, Reacher’s erstwhile commanding officer and mentor. Reacher last saw her when she was 15 and in the throes of a violent crush on him. Now she’s 30, and as gorgeous as you might have guessed. Among other things, she needs Reacher to finish a task begun by her recently deceased father. Reacher accepts the mission, of course, and is immediately in confrontation with a sadistic demon, obligatorily brilliant, whose intricate scam has roots in Vietnam and whose pleasure in killing and maiming is unconfined. But love (for Jodie) has not blunted Reacher’s martial capabilities, and from a climactic one-on-one with Hook (the sadistic demon) Hobie, he emerges scathed but triumphant. Unabashedly mindless but fun: Reacher swashbuckles with the best of them.
Pub Date: July 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-14467-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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