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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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