Colorful, but best for those who don't mind Picoult's heavily sentimental style.
Teenaged witches, DNA evidence, Megan's Law, belladonna-laced tea, and an honest ex-con addicted to Jeopardy!, all mixed up in a well-researched if slightly disappointing small-town legal drama by veteran Picoult (Plain Truth, 2000, etc.).
Honest prep-school teacher and soccer coach Jack St. Bride has just completed an unjust sentence for statutory rape, to which he pleaded guilty only because a lazy lawyer persuaded him to hedge his bets. Somewhat unbelievably, he managed to escape being raped in prison by telling the brutal Mountain Felcher, "You're not going to break me." When he stops in Salem Falls, New Hampshire, to begin anew, things start looking up as he falls swiftly in love with his employer, fragile diner-owner Addie Peabody. The fact that she "tasted of coffee and loneliness" upon first kiss does not hinder Jack, but the law does: as a convicted sexual offender, he's required to register with the local police, and of course they can't keep a secret. Before long, there's widespread paranoia about the "dangerous rapist" on the loose in Salem Falls. Foremost of the alarmists is Amos Duncan, head of Duncan Pharmaceuticals, the town's only major corporation. His ire is exacerbated when his weird daughter Gillian, a devoted Wiccan, sets into action a chain of events that snares Jack in another rape charge—this time not merely statutory. One-third of the way in, the story turns into a courtroom battle between civil-liberties eccentric Jordan McAfee and sanctimonious prosecutor Matt Houlihan. Picoult's depiction of the legal process is excellent, especially her intriguing and thorough explanation of DNA evidence, and the narrative is impressively complicated, with a couple of eye-opening surprises. A few of the resolutions, however, seem contrived, and when the language turns lyrical or metaphorical, it falls flat.
Colorful, but best for those who don't mind Picoult's heavily sentimental style.Pub Date: April 10, 2001
ISBN: 0-7434-1870-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
Tepid terrors along the way to a mildly surprising end.
Suburban thriller from the prolific Coben (No Second Chance, 2002, etc.), about a perfect husband who disappears when a photo from the past shows up in the latest batch from the photomat.
Perfectly in love since their romantic meeting in France 15 years earlier, Jack and Grace Lawson are living the suburban dream: Windstar, Saab, daughter, son. He makes lots of money, she makes lots of art. There is a teeny flaw. Grace limps. It’s the scar she bears from the trauma she endured before the trip to France. There was this rock concert. Shots were fired. Panic. Deaths. Heroism. Cowardice. Badly mangled Grace made it out of a coma with a week or two of memory gone and a healthy dislike of big crowds. Suddenly the superperfect life she has built from the ruins has gone off the rails. Tucked in among a set of newly developed photos is a snap taken sometime in the ’80s. It shows a group of young people, possibly hip for the decade, and one of the lads, while hairier and callower, is clearly Jack. The insertion could only have been at the hands of the slacker in the Kodak kiosk, but he’s disappeared. And, upon viewing the photo, so has Jack, leaving Grace to ask that old reliable story-starting question: “Just who is this man I thought I knew?” Answers must be found quickly, for handsome Jack has been captured by a cold-blooded, sadistic, Korean killer and lies senseless in the boot of the stolen family minivan. Detective assistance comes from a rogue District Attorney, a wacky girlfriend, a lovelorn neighbor, a tough Jewish cop with a hole in his heart where his wife used to be, a shadowy, powerful mob guy whose son died at the rock concert, and possibly from Jimmy X, the rocker whose concert seems to have started the present subdivisional mayhem all those years ago.
Tepid terrors along the way to a mildly surprising end.Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-525-94791-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
Kubica is a helluva storyteller, and while this doesn't quite equal her best efforts, it’s still pretty darn good.
When Jessie Sloane's mother, Eden, dies of cancer, Jessie is left rudderless. Then she discovers she might not be the person she thought she was.
Jessie never knew her father, and she can’t bear to live in the house that she shared with Eden, so she puts it on the market. When she applies to community college, she gets a call with the alarming news that a death certificate was filed 17 years ago with her name and social security number on it. She'll need to get a copy of her social security card, but without a birth certificate or driver’s license—she doesn’t drive—it’s nearly impossible, and when a clerk takes pity on her and does a search, no records are found. It’s a vicious circle, and it hampers her ability to find an apartment, although she does eventually find a place in a small carriage house she rents from reclusive widow Ms. Geissler. Unfortunately, in addition to the question of her identity, she’s got a more pressing problem: Jessie has insomnia, and as the days pass and she doesn’t sleep, she begins to hear and see things, eventually wondering how long she can go without sleep before it kills her. Woven with Jessie’s first-person narrative is Eden’s tale, beginning 20 years ago in 1996 when she’s only 28. She and her husband, Aaron, are crazy in love and desperately hope for a child, but as time passes and they don’t conceive, they begin trying more aggressive, and more expensive, methods. Eden’s obsession builds to a fever pitch, threatening to tear her and Aaron apart. Jessie’s story, an effective study of grief, nightmarishly builds to its own fever pitch, and Kubica peppers her narrative with creepy, surreal touches that will have readers questioning reality right along with Jessie. Eden’s story, on the other hand, poignantly examines what it’s like to want a child so badly that you’ll do anything to have one. Can Jessie find out who she really is before it’s too late? It all leads to a denouement that isn't very surprising, but a lesser writer might not have been able to pull off the final twist.
Kubica is a helluva storyteller, and while this doesn't quite equal her best efforts, it’s still pretty darn good.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7783-3078-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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