A page-turner rife with historical details and timeless intrigue.
A woman’s outlandish fears may turn out to be quite real in this historical thriller.
World War I is over but its scars remain. On the shores of Lake Como, Italy, Englishmen and women cross paths at a sanitarium. Penelope Jones is certain that someone is trying to kill her while her husband and family are more inclined to think this paranoia is the product of a troubled mind, exacerbated by the untimely death of her brother. Dr. Joseph Barnett in part agrees, but at the same time he finds himself challenged by the patient, as she swings from insisting on violent attackers around every corner to making erudite observations on Shakespeare, drawn from a deep well of professorial knowledge. Further complicating things, Barnett is intimately familiar with Penelope’s husband, Alexander Cavendish. While Cavendish is renowned as a war hero, Barnett served with him in the trenches and hates the man, as does the doctor’s wife, Rose, who treated both soldiers for their war wounds. But even as the story reveals more about all these characters’ pasts, so too does the plot thicken in the present, as physical evidence that Penelope is under assault begins to emerge and the thorny emotional and financial reasons behind even her marriage surface. While Penelope at times speaks of past lives and conspiracies, the other characters must face up to the mounting uncertainty over just how much of her delusion is madness—and how much is truth. Miller (When Darkness Comes, 2017, etc.) promises a story full of twists and turns and complex relationships and resentments—set against a powerful backdrop—and he absolutely delivers. The prose is solid, if a little rocky around the various characters’ introductions, where exposition can drown out the rest of the scene: “Her ancestors had been at the forefront of British affairs for several centuries, revered by most of the Empire’s subjects, but the current generation was cursed by tragedy.” But after these early growing pains, the plotting moves briskly, switching perspectives as the characters’ relationships deepen and become more intricate, all the while peppering readers with new clues as to just who won’t make it out of Italy alive.
A page-turner rife with historical details and timeless intrigue.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-79052-524-9
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
