More noir bombast from Ellroy (The Black Dahlia, etc.), who sets this cops, Commies, crooks, and creeps saga in 1950 L.A. When upright, uptight Sheriff's Deputy Danny Upshaw catches the squeal, it's particularly gruesome: someone removed the victim's eyes, ejaculated into the sockets, shredded his back with a "Zoot Stick," then chomped on the innards with wolverine teeth. Three more murders, same M.O., follow, but Danny's investigation is slowed by his assignment to a grand jury team investigating the Commie menace in the UAES (United Alliance of Extras and Stagehands), including rich, nympho Claire DeHaven, her "queer" actor fiance Reynolds Loftis, and their left-wing pals. With HUAC tactics—blackmail, mostly—much of Hollywood's homosexual community is threatened, while the emerging Teamsters Union under Mickey Cohen is bashing heads and panel member Lt. Dudley Smith—with a murder of his own to keep under wraps—is making sure that Danny's investigation goes nowhere. Still, there are leads: to Loftis; to a Hollywood agent who arranged "pansy" parties; to jive musicians; to a plastic surgeon; and to the official Communist Party psychiatrist. Meanwhile, panel members Considine and Meeks have their own agenda: Considine and his wife are wrangling over child-custody; Meeks, a pimp for Howard Hughes, is sleeping with Cohen's girl and has to blow away bent cop Niels to keep it secret. Danny is accused of the murder—and commits suicide rather than submit to a lie detector test that will reveal his homophilia. Out of guilt, Meeks, with the help of Considine, picks up on his homicide investigation and uncovers a tale of homosexual incest, homosexual betrayal, rage, murder, and revenge, all neatly documented by the Commie psychiatrist. Despite all the Commie-baiting, the jive talk, the wisecracks, this is a cop story—too long by at least a third but propelled by a mean, dark vision of the world, with dank, sleazy language. Depressing, with a convoluted beginning, an impossible ending (the psychiatrist's rehash of the case), but there's a truly strong middle at 200 pages. On balance: O.K.
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1998
ISBN: 0446674370
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1988
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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