An old soldier returns to West Point to find even more trouble than he—d left behind in this up-to-the-minute sequel to Dress Gray (1979). When Cadet Ry Slaight exposed the murder and cover-up of a gay classmate at West Point in 1969, he very nearly brought down the Academy and seemed to have destroyed his Army career. But time has a strange way of writing straight with crooked lines, and 30 years later Slaight finds himself back at the Point—as Superintendent. During his first few days in command, he observes jarring changes in military life—not the least of which is the presence of his daughter Jacey in the Corps of Cadets. But his idyll is short-lived: during parade exercises marking the start of the academic year, a cadet drops dead under mysterious circumstances, prompting an official inquiry and the attention of Washington and the national press. In the entire history of West Point, no one has ever died during parade exercises, and the fact that the unfortunate cadet was female is all that some minds need to confirm their suspicions that the Academy’s going to hell in a handbasket. A preliminary autopsy reveals that the young woman had had sex with at least three different men the day before she died, and when evidence begins to point toward members of the powerful Honor Committee, the stonewalling begins in earnest. How can Superintendent Slaight get to the bottom of things when half his officers despise him and most of the cadets seem scared to open their mouths? Through his daughter, that’s how. But this puts Jacey on the line, and soon enough Slaight worries that she—ll end up as the second casualty. Throw in an untrustworthy senator, a secret society, the unhappy mistress of someone important, and a big-shot cadet torn between his love for Jacey and his loyalty to his comrades . . . . Good suspense without much originality. Military buffs will love the detail and not care about the plot. Civilians, though, may feel a bit let down.
Pub Date: July 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-688-15993-1
Page Count: 383
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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