A complex tale with an upbeat detective who valiantly confronts a bevy of villains.
Canfield’s (Dark Sky, 2015, etc.) latest thriller finds New York City private investigator Max Bowman searching for an elusive comic book artist, only to wind up entangled in a conspiracy.
When Max took down the secret military operation Dark Sky last year, it made him a media darling, and he now has a book about his experience in the works. He also has his next gig lined up: comic book publisher “Mighty Mel” Chesler wants him to track down writer/artist Ben Mikov, whose whereabouts have been unknown for decades. Mikov abandoned the industry just before his 12-issue Blue Fire series ended, and the fan-abhorred issue #12 was completed without him; despite this, the series eventually earned cult status. Mel needs Mikov to sign off on a Blue Fire film adaptation, but finding him isn’t easy. Even Max’s CIA frenemy, Howard Klein, turns up nothing. Before Max quits, though, he has drinks with Mel’s grandnieces, Candy and Janine, who plead with him to stay on the case. At the restaurant, the PI is suddenly woozy, apparently drugged, and his ensuing bad trip, recorded by witnesses, later goes viral. This, coupled with the unexplained disappearance of Sen. Abe Marks, Max’s ally during “the Dark Sky thing,” makes him surmise that he’s experiencing blowback from that operation. Someone’s trying to discredit him, he thinks, and this is seemingly verified when he’s dosed again, abducted, and tortured. In this second appearance, Canfield makes Max almost playfully buoyant, which contrasts nicely with the dense, though never confusing, plot. The cynical Max remains optimistic, even when his situation’s dire; despite the fact that numerous people are clearly against him, he still plans on keeping his “dental appointment next Tuesday.” Max’s volatile relationship with his estranged girlfriend, Jules, is efficacious when he has nowhere else to turn to for help. But the best interactions are between Max and Eydie, his new rescue dog, whom he reluctantly grows to love. Mikov’s location does play a part in the story, but the real mystery lies in who the baddies are and how deep their machinations run. Hefty twists abound, including a couple that Canfield saves for the final 10 pages.
A complex tale with an upbeat detective who valiantly confronts a bevy of villains.Pub Date: May 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9975707-0-0
Page Count: 398
Publisher: joined at the hip
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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