Solid characters steer a tantalizing mystery that’s unhurried but more than worth its while.
In this debut thriller, recent hires at a chemical company learn there may be a coverup regarding a new product’s nasty side effects.
Alex Gregory’s doctorate in statistics and minor in chemistry earn him his first “ ‘real’ job” at Sterling Chemicals, overseeing pesticide field testing and data analysis. Small-town Alex has barely settled into his New York City high-rise office when he gets a strange call from Cindy, the widow of Dr. Peter Hudson, whose fatal heart attack vacated the position Alex now holds. Cindy, trying to reach HR, inadvertently dials Peter’s number and reaches Alex, a complete stranger with whom she’d like to talk about her deceased husband. At a coffee shop, she claims Peter was too close to something at Sterling, and his death was actually murder. The new administrative assistant (and Alex’s potential romantic interest), Leslie Sherwood, hears of another former employee’s unusual exit—Dawn Manning simply stopped showing up at work. Meanwhile, Alex and Leslie are unnerved by a blue-shirted man who they’re fairly certain is following them. All of this likely stems from a pesticide in development, with a high kill rate for bugs but whose potential lethalness for humans Sterling may have intentionally buried. The tale’s measured pace deftly establishes characters (Alex and Leslie bond during the company’s dreary orientation) and plot (employees suspiciously avoid any discussion about Peter). Frazee’s details are sometimes excessive, like specifics on how to run an espresso machine. But the introduction of a slowly approaching menace is effective, namely the recurring man in the discernible blue shirt, who’s innocuous at first but decidedly more frightening once Sterling workers link him to probable murder. The mystery, too, is both alluring and appropriate in its white-collar relevance: a document inexplicably missing from a file signifies something sinister, while another one hidden in Alex’s office is pure intrigue. The ending, though a bit rushed, is realistic and left predominantly open.
Solid characters steer a tantalizing mystery that’s unhurried but more than worth its while.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63524-636-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: LitFire Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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