A simple tale with a hero who’s just a regular guy, which makes him all the more likable and exemplary.
An agent in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, searching for missing parolees, fears that the Aryan Brotherhood may be responsible for their disappearances in Shaw’s straightforward debut thriller.
When Sam Wellington’s injury in Afghanistan renders him ineligible for re-enlistment in the Army, he gets a job as a correctional officer at San Quentin State Prison in California. It’s a tough gig, and he gladly opts for a parole agent position in nearby Calaveras and Amador counties, even if his predecessor, Lucas Kane, inexplicably disappeared. Sam’s duties seem fairly routine until he promises Jesse Ramirez’s family that he’ll look for the recently missing parolee. Other parolees disappear as well, but it’s the discovery of Kane’s badge that leads Sam to wealthy Felix Tully, who has ties to the Aryan Brotherhood. Sam, after a few run-ins with the Aryan group, whose members include Tully’s brother Hitler, believes he may find answers at Tully’s mansion in the mountains. The author aptly develops his protagonist well before the Calaveras investigation starts. Sam, for example, is an exceptional Army Ranger, but seeing him out of his element at the grueling San Quentin prison establishes him as both tolerant and pragmatic. His down-to-earth status makes the missing persons case even more intimidating and also sets the stage for his inevitable romance with the abrasive Pam Maxant. The no-nonsense Pam, whose cabin Sam rents, works her way into Sam’s investigation, including tagging along to a crime scene because she knows a more efficient route. The tale involves little mystery: Sam doesn’t gather clues or scrutinize evidence, and he has no genuine suspects beyond Tully and his Aryan entourage. But the villains are unquestionably menacing, particularly Hitler and his cohorts, sparking conflict with Sam after one merely brushes up against Sam’s shoulder in passing. The protagonist, meanwhile, makes progress with both the missing parolees and in his relationship with Pam. Lengthy scenes with Sam at a Veterans Affairs Hospital and San Quentin initially seem irrelevant but pay off in the blistering final sequence that allows Sam to use skills he’s picked up along the way. Mystery fans may see the lack of genre elements as a shortcoming, but Shaw keeps the story moving and retains interest with engaging characters.
A simple tale with a hero who’s just a regular guy, which makes him all the more likable and exemplary.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9706798-8-8
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Talahi Media Arts
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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