Stop this world, you’ll want to get off.
A thousand years after the apocalypse or Armageddon or something, Visa Second America finds history repeating itself through an attempt to recast civilization from its ashes.
The third and most audacious novel by Boice (NoVa, 2008, etc.) is futuristic without being science fiction or even speculative fiction. Because except for the fact that Visa has now branded itself on pretty much everything (from the name of every country to psychological conditions including “Visa Schizophrenia and Visa Bipolar Disorder”), the 34th century isn’t appreciably different from the present. Maybe young people are a little meaner and more desperate, and maybe ruling officials are more corrupt in their relations with organized crime, but the author’s social commentary plainly sees these as matters of degree rather than transformation: “They were sociopaths. But they were human beings. And human beings are all alike. Always have been, always will be.” Such are the reflections of the protagonist and frequent first-person narrator, Junior Alvarez, an Irishman (yes, it’s that kind of novel), engaged in interminable conflict with the Italians. The reader meets Junior as an incarcerated juvenile delinquent, who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Alejandro el Grande (until he realizes that Bob Dylan is the reincarnation of Alexander the Great, and that he, Junior, is the reincarnation of Bob Dylan, writer of such classics as “Imagine,” “Auld Lang Syne” and “Beat It"). He later becomes a flunky, a hoodlum, a combination community leader and drug pusher and, through the novel’s extended finale, a crook on the lam. In a plot that seems more like a graphic novel or a screenplay than the literary fiction to which it seems to aspire, he finds himself pitted against a mother whose son he battered in a street brawl. Much of the novel that isn’t narrated by Junior finds his female adversary wreaking vengeance against society in general and stalking Junior in particular. Justice is served…maybe.
Stop this world, you’ll want to get off.Pub Date: June 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4165-7544-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.
An Arizona accountant with a penchant for solving murders lands a fishy case.
Sophie "Phee" Kimball might lead a dull life if it weren’t for her mother, Harriet Plunkett, and Harriet’s neurotic Chiweenie, Streetman. As it is, Harriet lives near her daughter in Sun City West and has a wide circle of zany friends who’ve helped Phee solve several mysteries (Molded 4 Murder, 2019, etc.) while she’s been working for Williams Investigations along with her boyfriend, Marshall, a former police officer. While Phee’s visiting Harriet one day, Streetman dashes over to the neighbors’ barbecue grill and unearths a dead body under a tarp. As usual, the overwhelmed local police ask Williams Investigations to help—er, consult. Harriet’s main concern is getting costumes made for the reluctant Streetman, whom she’s entered in a series of contests starting with Halloween and progressing through Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, and St. Patrick’s Day. One of her friends is an accomplished seamstress who goes all out making gorgeous costumes that will beat an obnoxious lady who looks down on mutts. The dead man is identified as Cameron Tully, a seafood distributor, who was poisoned by the locally ubiquitous sago pine. At the first dog contest, Elaine Meschow has to be rushed to the hospital after she gets a dose of the same thing. The owner of a gourmet dog food company, Elaine is lucky enough to recover. After Streetman takes second place, Harriet’s team redoubles its efforts for the next contest while Phee and Marshall, who are moving into a new place together, continue to hunt for clues. A restaurant holdup and a scheme to use empty houses for hookups for high school kids add to the confusion.
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2455-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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