Eighteen months ago, in the world before Pearl Harbor, Carl Carlson was reaching for the brass ring. The Carolina Crooner caught the eye, and ear, of Michael Papanoumou (``the Greek'') and Ernie Mussolini, major players in the Cleveland rackets, who planned a push that would put his name in lights and might even send him to Hollywood. Now, back home from Europe with a sniper's bullet in his arm, Carl is looking at Cleveland from 120 miles away—Fort Anthony Wayne, in dreary Erie—and it might as well be on another planet, unless he can talk his CO into putting him on a long enough leash to track down his old contacts. But when he finally scares up Musso (who's shortened his name for one reason and the other), he learns that the Greek has been killed by gangster Giorgio Macchianti, and Musso's only interest in Carl is in having him worm his way into torch singer Natalie Bixby's capacious bed so that she can whisper Georgy Mack's whereabouts to him. Not only does Carl have no stomach for this assignment, but the murder of a German POW back at Fort Wayne and the fatal rape of a young boy nearby are more than enough to keep him off- balance. More than enough for this moody, overplotted tale, too. Best to treat Davis's fifth novel (Red Knight, 1992, etc.) as a fabulously sooty tapestry of wartime nostalgia with its sour hero and multiple felonies as a bonus.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-877946-70-2
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
While Liv’s more pedestrian story is less romantic than Sophie’s and far less nuanced, Moyes is a born storyteller who makes...
The newest novel by Moyes (Me Before You, 2012, etc.) shares its title with a fictional painting that serves as catalyst in linking two love stories, one set in occupied France during World War I, the other in 21st-century London.
In a French village in 1916, Sophie is helping the family while her husband, Édouard, an artist who studied with Matisse, is off fighting. Sophie’s pluck in standing up to the new German kommandant in the village draws his interest. An art lover, he also notices Édouard's portrait of Sophie, which captures her essence (and the kommandant's adoration). Arranging to dine regularly at Sophie’s inn with his men, he begins a cat-and-mouse courtship. She resists. But learning that Édouard is being held in a particularly harsh “reprisal” camp, she must decide what she will sacrifice for Édouard’s freedom. The rich portrayals of Sophie, her family and neighbors hauntingly capture wartime’s gray morality. Cut to 2006 and a different moral puzzle. Thirty-two-year-old widow Liv has been struggling financially and emotionally since her husband David’s sudden death. She meets Paul in a bar after her purse is stolen. The divorced father is the first man she’s been drawn to since she was widowed. They spend a glorious night together, but after noticing Édouard's portrait of Sophie on Liv’s wall, he rushes away with no explanation. In fact, Paul is as smitten as Liv, but his career is finding and returning stolen art to the rightful owners. Usually the artwork was confiscated by Germans during World War II, not WWI, but Édouard's descendants recently hired him to find this very painting. Liv is not about to part with it; David bought it on their honeymoon because the portrait reminded him of Liv. In love, Liv and Paul soon find themselves on opposite sides of a legal battle.
While Liv’s more pedestrian story is less romantic than Sophie’s and far less nuanced, Moyes is a born storyteller who makes it impossible not to care about her heroines.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-02661-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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