One-Eyed Mack is back: the innocent outlaw of that winsome picaresque Kick the Can (1988) is now, in the early 70's, Lieutenant-Governor of Oklahoma, defending his state against calumnies spread by TV network news. Even though he has a four-figure salary and a staff of only two, Mack is happy as a clam in his dream job, cutting ribbons, especially when the ribbons belong to Jackie-Marts, the drive-thru supermarkets pioneered by his wife Jackie. For Mack is now a devoted family man, spending long hours offering support to stepson Tommy Walt, whose pitching career in semipro ball is dying a slow, painful death. But when CBS Justice Department correspondent Archibald Tyler "discovers" a new, Oklahoma-based organized-crime group, and the Governor, Buffalo Joe—busy with his pet project to "crown Oklahoma" by putting a dome on the capitol—delegates Mack to prove the allegation is a "crock," he finds himself at the center of a political storm. With the help of C., the one-eared director of the OBI; Brother Walt, "the Greatest Holy Road Preacher in Southeast Oklahoma"; and his father, a Kansas state trooper, Mack thwarts Tyler's plan to achieve notoriety by hoodwinking his network with a made-up story; much fun is had by all, though the high jinks briefly threaten to get serious when an endearing country bus-driver is blown to bits by an out-of-state mafioso. Lehrer (co-anchor of public television's McNeil/Lehrer News Hour) has written a sequel that is every bit as genial as Kick the Can, though with less content; the premise here is thin, and Tyler never quite jells into a credible character—but that warm narrative voice, with its affection for American folkways, just about saves the day.
Pub Date: May 22, 1989
ISBN: 1571780408
Page Count: -
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1989
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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