A rousing religious mystery—pastrami not included.
In Appel’s (The Biology of Luck, 2013, etc.) mystery novel, an unusual rabbi seeks the truth about a local woman’s death.
Kappelmacher isn’t your typical rabbi. He has a faithful congregation but also a mind for riddles, a nose for the mysterious and a distinct love for pastrami sandwiches. When his former assistant rabbi, lawyer Marshall Green, tells him about the suspicious death of Florence Eisenstein, an elderly client with a complicated will, Kappelmacher and his current assistant, Steinmetz, snap to action to get to the bottom of it. It turns out that Florence and her sister, Lorraine, were bound by a caveat in their wealthy father’s will that neither would ever marry; if either did so, the newlywed would be disinherited and the other sister would receive her share. But strangely, Florence died the day after her wedding. A doctor says that she passed away due to an asthma attack, but some people aren’t so sure. Was someone trying to kill Florence’s sister, in a case of mistaken identity, to come into some quick cash? Or did Florence’s cousin, Agatha, or nephew, Fred, kill her to settle an old family grudge? Using lies and clever tricks, Kappelmacher and Steinmetz try to quietly solve Florence’s murder before someone finds out they’re not professional detectives. Appel’s novel is funny, thoughtful and fiercely entertaining, but it does run into a few bumps along the way. For example, Kappelmacher’s use of Yiddish at every turn is somewhat overwrought; he insults Steinmetz with so many “dumkopfs” and “nudniks” that readers may start to feel a little bad for the guy. That said, Kappelmacher largely comes off as a stimulating, perfectly idiosyncratic frontman throughout this tale. The well-paced plot neither plods nor races to the finish as some other whodunits do, and the final resolution is both surprising and refreshing. Appel, a prolific writer in other genres, would do well to continue writing such suspenseful prose, as he apparently has a knack for it.
A rousing religious mystery—pastrami not included.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1939816146
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Cozy Cat Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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