It only begins when the fat lady sings, as San Antonio D.A. Mark Blackwell (Fade the Heat, 1990) learns in this crackling tale of a child-abuse confession too good to be true. Forgetting the maxim never to trust a freebie, Blackwell allows his old boss Eliot Quinn to talk him into accepting Chris Davis's surrender on charges of having kidnapped and molested two young boys. Standing before the judge, though, Davis recants his confession, and when Blackwell tries to cobble together a case from the boys' testimony, one of them positively identifies the perp as Austin Paley, Blackwell's old friend and Davis's lawyer. At the same time, a third boy, seeing Paley on TV news, spontaneously announces that this was the man who abused him in an incident he's kept secret for two years. More witnesses don't make a stronger case against an opponent like Paley, however, as Blackwell realizes when he ties Paley to an old coverup of urban development gone murderous—and sees just how capable Paley is of calling in favors to the powers that be in his desperate attempt to stay out of jail: one of the witnesses suddenly refuses to testify—an obvious beneficiary of a big payoff—and another begins to get cold feet. As if the political chicanery doesn't make the terrain slippery enough, Blackwell also has to cope with ethical reservations when Quinn gives him the details of Paley's own abused childhood (a secret Quinn has been covering up on his own) and sees how closely Paley's childhood—and the neglect of his star witness, Tommy Algren- -mirror his own distant relationship to his son David. Brandon proves unexpectedly canny about the devastating appeal of molesters to their young victims, and shows again that nobody, not even Scott Turow, can outdo him in blow-by-blow courtroom suspense- -even though once the verdict is in, you may wonder what all the fuss was about. (Literary Guild Selection for Winter)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-76032-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993
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
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
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