A lighthearted, shoot’em-up romp in the Montana Territory—fans should be happy that the author plans two sequels to complete...
Prolific author Spalsbury (Zorkon’s Secret, 2016, etc.) returns to the Old West for this fourth volume in his Hunt series.
James A. “Buff” Beaufait is the title character, but he is only one of the stars of this Western. There is Doc Whitfield, the medical man who wears a black cape and doubles as “the fastest gunfighter in the West”; Jaime Larson, proprietor of the Lead Sky Livery and Dray; Snort, the buffalo runner who quotes Shakespeare; and Sam Haddly, a former slave and current proprietor of the blacksmith shop. They make a formidable team. It is 1872 in the Montana Territory, which is filled with plenty of dangerous varmints to be confronted: a small party of Cheyenne warriors, the usual assortment of nasty crooks and murderers, and an abusive husband and father. Happily they are outflanked, if not always outnumbered, by the good guys: the peaceful Blackfoot Indians who are part of the Whitfield clan, the kindly citizenry ready to take in assorted orphans, and the clever, gunslinging heroes who are determined to civilize the territory. The shootouts, the pileup of bodies, and even the terror of Snort almost being burned at the stake are all lightened by Spalsbury’s omnipresent sense of humor, the quirky schemes he devises, and a joyful optimism. Underlying all the violence is a core belief in the power of the simple acts of friendship. Of the numerous subplots, the one about Crow Eye, “a young half-breed skinner,” fierce and terrifying with extraordinary tomahawk skills, is especially charming—watch his heart begin to melt when he rescues a puppy who falls asleep in his lap. Gun enthusiasts should enjoy the author’s attention to detail as he describes the plethora of weaponry called upon to do the job, complete with modifications and homemade bullets. The rollicking, action-driven novel has so many supporting characters that it is sometimes difficult to keep them all straight. But no matter; the quick pace should sustain readers over any temporary confusion, and by the end everyone in Chesterville, Montana, will likely become comfortably familiar.
A lighthearted, shoot’em-up romp in the Montana Territory—fans should be happy that the author plans two sequels to complete the series.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5355-8396-1
Page Count: 354
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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