by James McGrath ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 26, 2016
An action-packed thriller, marred by a lumbering plot and mechanical prose.
A real estate agent is unwittingly drawn into a murder mystery that involves political intrigue in this debut novel.
Imogene Byrne is a controversial woman in the small town of Conrad: twice widowed, with both of her former husbands dying under circumstances considered by many suspicious, and both leaving her considerable life insurance payouts. She runs a successful real estate firm and raises two sons—one from each of her marriages—and regularly rails against what she perceives as the decline of the country into complacency and mediocrity. She even establishes an organization—St. Jude Today—designed to draw attention to her remarkably broad and shrill caterwauls of complaint. A local religious leader—Bishop Daniel B. Lamping— dies suddenly of what seems to be natural causes, but his personal physician, Sawyer Paine, suspects that an insect bite on the bishop’s arm was actually caused by a tiny dart allegedly used in CIA assassinations. Paine’s only real evidence for that fantastical conclusion is his recollection of the dart’s discussion during Senate hearings in the 1970s. Meanwhile, a trio of outlaws kidnaps Imogene and her son Connor to extract a significant ransom. Their plan is thwarted by Imogene’s other son, Carl—a police officer—and it turns out one of the perpetrators is responsible for the murder of Bishop Lamping, contracted by an ex-CIA operative. The FBI opens an investigation into the matter. McGrath flashes back to Bishop Lamping’s life to slowly—the pace of the book is akin to a leisurely stroll—furnish insight into why he came to be a target for assassination in the first place. The plot suffers no shortage of action, though it does splinter under the weight of both implausibility and convolution. In addition, the dialogue is halting and leaden. Consider this line delivered by Connor regarding his upcoming vacation with Imogene: “ ‘Mother, I know you well enough to know that our visit to these locations will be worth our time from a purely personal enjoyment standpoint,’ Connor answered while chuckling.” No one talks like that in real life, but everyone does in McGrath’s novelistic cosmos.
An action-packed thriller, marred by a lumbering plot and mechanical prose.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5393-5120-7
Page Count: 370
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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