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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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