A powerhouse legal/action thriller—about an alcoholic lawyer defending outlaw bikers charged with murder-one—that roundly reflects the story-telling skills and commercial instincts that first-novelist Freedman evidently developed as director-writer of film and TV melodramas (Kansas City Bomber, Borderline, Night Gallery, etc.). Hero Will Alexander's wry, humane, energetic narration (intercut by action-oriented third-person passages) immediately earns our sympathy for this appealingly flawed 40-year-old: Santa Fe's top defense attorney, twice-divorced father of ten-year-old Claudia, whom he adores, high-strung Will is canned for excess drinking and womanizing by the law firm he founded—and then is told by Claudia's mom that she's moving to Seattle with Claudia. Hard knocks: but cushioned by a headline case that falls into Will's lap, the defense of down-and-dirty biker Lone Wolf and his three comrades, accused of the mutilation-murder of a local drug-dealer—and convicted by the press before trial. Hinging on some weird forensic evidence and on testimony of a whore the bikers raped, the likely outcome of the trial seesaws as the prosecution and Will—sated with self-doubt, drinking, and wenching—razzle-dazzle the jury; but the inevitable verdict comes in: guilty. Months later, however, the whore recants: her testimony was perjured, she claims, extorted by the police. Will, who's meanwhile been caring for Claudia and pursuing a hot affair, turns back to the case—only to see Lone Wolf swept up in a violent prison riot that Will is asked to mediate. And matters become complicated further when a stranger confesses to the crime, calling Will to West Virginia to meet him at a rousing snake-handling religious revival. But it all winds up back in the courtroom—and in a slam-bang ending. Will's incessant self-absorption begins to grate near the end, but, long before, the narrative's storm surge of courtroom duels, gritty crime action, twisty plotting, and technicolor characters has irrevocably swept the reader up in one of the most extravagantly entertaining thrillers of the year.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-670-84115-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1991
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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