Conceptually cute, but sluggish in the telling.
New Zealand author de la Bere (The Last Deception of Palliser Wentwood, 1999, etc.) gives a piquant twist to the Welcome Home Party.
Middle-aged Crawford Hollander, wealthy wine merchant, considers himself a success. Though a native New Zealander, he’s lived in England for years, where he’s acquired a plummy English accent, a well-born wife, and a country house designed by Lutyens. He’s rich and has a coterie of admiring women who are delighted to accompany him to events his wife Genista would prefer to miss. But his perfect life, so carefully created, begins to crumble when, annoyed by a production of Faust, he abandons his wife and leaves the opera house and then, when ready to go home, discovers he’s been locked out of the house. And though he finds a bed with young New Zealander Mercy Fisher, whose mortgage he pays in return for a number of services rendered, he’s uncharacteristically shaken by the evening’s events. It’s soon clear that Crawford, who’s planning a celebratory visit back to New Zealand—he has a birthday coming up that can be conveniently combined with some business—is not quite the charming and considerate aesthete he appears to be. He cheated his brother-in-law, the Commander, out of his savings; destroyed his sister Rosalia’s marriage; raped Mercy when she was a schoolgirl, then insisted she have the abortion that made her sterile; falsely acquired a vineyard from a struggling couple just as they were about to succeed; and blackmailed Wolf, a brilliant vintner. Now, however, a certain three men (a.k.a. The Welcoming Committee) have their own plans for the return of this successful native son. It’s payback time, and the three do it with style—black-tie and string quartet—as Crawford gets the welcome he really deserves, justice finally served.
Conceptually cute, but sluggish in the telling.Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-09-944085-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Vintage UK/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004
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
BOOK REVIEW
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