An absorbing mystery full of bigger-than-life characters lovingly portrayed.
A harrowing suspense novel set in the remote reaches of a Colorado mountain range.
After a lifetime teaching at a small Southwestern college, Tommy Tulloch accepts an invitation to spend a year at the Lazy R, a ranch established in the 1880s by a hardened pioneer named Fisk. His only task is researching the history of the ranch. For a few days, the all-expenses-paid sabbatical proves idyllic. Tulloch takes walks into the surrounding mountain range, hobnobs with cowboys and ranch hands and dines on heaping plates of fresh grub. But when Tall Bear, a Ute activist, turns up dead–the corpse chewed up by a host of forest creatures–Tulloch’s world is thrown into chaos. He deftly peels back the layers of mystery surrounding the Lazy R and finds evidence of a battle between land developers, who are eager to use the ranch for a deluxe resort, and the Native Indians who have historical claim to the land. Trapped in the middle are Rupert Fisk, a descendent of the 19th-century pioneer, and his wife Mary, a well-known Chicago socialite. The Fisk Foundation is funding Tulloch’s sabbatical, but can the professor really trust the Fisks? And what about Ross Rhodes, who runs the ranch? Literature professor Gordon expertly unwinds the narrative on two planes, alternating between the frenetic search for the truth behind Tall Bear’s death and the story of the Lazy R, re-created from yellowed newspaper clippings and decades-old diaries. Fans of the late Tony Hillerman’s detective novels will find much to love in Spirit Bears. The author creates a fine sense of atmosphere, and although he occasionally runs out of adjectives worthy enough to describe the resplendent surroundings–there are only so many ways to say “snow”–he settles on a deeply alluring portrait of a wild, wild west.
An absorbing mystery full of bigger-than-life characters lovingly portrayed.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4196-8610-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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