A twisty thriller that proves to be a wily, if textually dense, adventure.
From debut author Falcon comes a novel about an ancient musical manuscript and those who seek to decipher it.
When readers first meet Douglass Crenshaw, the middle-aged academic is down on his luck. Informed that he will shortly be terminated from his teaching position in the music history department at Northwestern University, he finds himself admitting, “At fifty-three my career is crawling to a pathetic end and no one cares.” All is not lost, though, as an old colleague, Fatima al-Salam of Trinity College, informs him of an intriguing manuscript that’s surfaced in Ireland. The Ballad of Light, as it’s known in its English translation, is a mixture of Spanish and Arabic text thought to be from 15th-century Islamic Spain. After word leaks of its existence, Fatima feels that she’s being watched closely; later, someone trashes her office, but why and who? Back in the year 66, the Judean Jacob ben Honi has deserted his high position with a Roman legion. Highly educated and agile in combat, he ventures to Jerusalem, where trouble is afoot. The destruction of that city is only a handful of years away, and the feared Sicarii, a new faction, causes a fair share of distress and bloodshed. How and when, engaged readers will wonder, will these two narratives collide, and what does it mean to the world at large? Mixing historical fiction with modern-day sleuthing, the book offers a great deal of information via its many characters. The supporting players are many and varied, including Crenshaw’s “confident but not arrogant” graduate assistant Lucy and the desert-hating Roman Marcus Trajan. Although the author’s overarching quest is very Indiana Jones–esque, the cantankerous, cellphone-disavowing professor is the anti–Harrison Ford. Dotted with scenes of library investigations (“Once in the Archives reading room, Lucy explains her needs to a skeptical librarian who reluctantly decides that she is not there to pillage the place”), the book seems intended for readers who can relate to a deep-seated excitement over archived materials.
A twisty thriller that proves to be a wily, if textually dense, adventure.Pub Date: June 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9962263-0-1
Page Count: 594
Publisher: Contemporary Music Project
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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