Bittersweet and unflinchingly real.
Nussbaum’s meaningful look at the strength it takes to shed the person you thought you were to become the person you were meant to be.
J.J. Spencer has just completed his first year as an associate at a prestigious New York law firm. He has the expensive suits, the nice apartment and the requisite attitude. On the surface, J.J. has accomplished everything he has set out to do, but a moment of compassion toward two strangers costs him dearly. The subsequent action chronicles J.J.’s demise and redemption when, having lost his cushy job, he is forced to re-examine his goals. Enrolling in law school straight after college (because, everyone agreed, it was “a good degree to have”), he’s spent his life trying to please his mother, escape his abusive father and prevent his talented, though eccentric, younger brother from making the same mistakes. Weaving in and out of J.J.’s past, the plot finds strength in witty dialogue and exploration of J.J.’s relationships with family, friends and colleagues, all the while keeping a balance between tragedy and comedy. J.J.’s past is marked with warning signs: He rose to legal stardom under the tutelage of a famous professor whose misery foreshadows J.J.’s own, and he loved the right girl but picked another because she conformed to the life he felt pressured to have. Nussbaum (Blue Road to Atlantis, 2002) occasionally waxes sentimental, but effective elements, like J.J.’s diligent practice of karate in hopes of earning a black belt, work to illustrate his search for meaning. J.J.’s flaws inform his humanity, and he remains a character worth routing for, even as he falls. Ultimately, this is a comforting novel—not because readers have suddenly found their way at its conclusion, but because they realize they are not alone in the search.
Bittersweet and unflinchingly real.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59264-201-4
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Toby Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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
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