Strictly for die-hard fans who won’t mind that even the shootouts are rushed and muddled.
Gunslinger Johnny Fierro’s rebirth as John Sinclair, son of a New Mexico rancher, is complete. Or is it?
Far from killing Guthrie Sinclair, the man his mother, Gabriela, had fled when he was only a child, Johnny has relented and let the old man take him into his domestic establishment. But his father isn’t exactly the nurturing type. And even if he were, it’s going to take more than a few kind words to civilize Johnny, who insists on calling his half brother, Guy, “Harvard,” complains about his foster sister Peggy’s cooking, and declines to introduce himself to Guthrie’s widowed neighbor, genteel racist rancher Edith Walsh, even when he’s doing a good deed for her. And that’s just when he’s at home. Let’s not even talk about Johnny’s gunfights, which claim a total of eight forgettable adversaries, and his habit of presenting himself at Delice Martin’s Cimarron whorehouse to celebrate each time by picking out a brace of young ladies equal to the number of victims he’s just shot dead. Will Johnny ever settle down, grow up, and clean up his language? Of course he will, but not quite yet in this second installment (Dance with the Devil, 2014), which features rudimentary plotting, primitive thought processes on the parts of even the most avowedly complicated characters, and tin-ear dialogue that blithely flouts genre and period norms, from Johnny’s suave self-qualification to the widow Walsh (“if I may say so”) to the experienced madam’s admonition to Johnny (“you really are clueless”).
Strictly for die-hard fans who won’t mind that even the shootouts are rushed and muddled.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4328-3120-2
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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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