Confused but cheerful little debut mystery with more shtick than gore.
Straining hard for Catskills-style humor at every turn, Annie Dowd (née Edelstein) is looking for her killer.
You see, Annie drowned mysteriously in the pool of a swanky Long Island mansion just when she was about to get up close and personal with a sexy fellow guest, an Englishman with a cute accent. Life—and death—are incredibly unfair. Just ask her mother: plump Mrs. Edelstein never approved of Annie marrying and then divorcing a certified goy anyway, especially not a globetrotting investigative journalist like Frank Dowd. Nonetheless, her heartrending wails when she learns of her daughter’s untimely demise are enough to break even the hard hearts of the Long Island cops who investigate the case. And so it’s on to likely suspects, beginning with Agnes Spurgeon, iron-willed, 70ish owner of the successful real estate firm where Annie worked as a broker. Annie’s colleagues include Harold Spurgeon, Agnes’s wussy son; Claudia Harmon, man-hungry, 30ish glamour-puss; handsome Matt Sterling, 20ish object of Claudia’s lust, and more. All gather round to speculate on who killed Annie and why. But there’s no better man to get to the bottom of things than fearless Frank, who undertakes an investigation out of lingering love for the dear departed, not noticing that Annie’s spirit has wound itself around his shoulders. She moves on to snuggle with her bereaved mother in the funeral limo, although Annie herself doesn’t mind being dead all that much. She’ll never have to worry about her weight again! Enter an obligatory troupe of Mafia goons to liven things up (well, a little). Annie interferes in her ethereal way to help out with the investigation. Turns out that Harold Spurgeon needed to cover some bad loans before Mommy found out, and a loan shark named Johnny Romano swam over somewhere in the middle of a rather murky plot . . . and Annie just got in the way.
Confused but cheerful little debut mystery with more shtick than gore.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7582-0260-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
"This soil," concludes the young narrator of this quiet chronicle of garrotted innocence, "is bad for all kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear." And among the exclusions of white rural Ohio, echoed by black respectability, is ugly, black, loveless, twelve-year-old Pecola. But in a world where blue-eyed gifts are clucked over and admired, and the Pecolas are simply not seen, there is always the possibility of the dream and wish—for blue eyes. Born of a mother who adjusted her life to the clarity and serenity of white households and "acquired virtues that were easy to maintain" and a father, Cholly, stunted by early rejections and humiliations, Pecola just might have been loved—for in raping his daughter Cholly did at least touch her. But "Love is never better than the lover," and with the death of her baby, the child herself, accepting absolutely the gift of blue eyes from a faith healer (whose perverse interest in little girls does not preclude understanding), inches over into madness. A skillful understated tribute to the fall of a sparrow for whose small tragedy there was no watching eye.
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1970
ISBN: 0375411550
Page Count: -
Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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