A brilliant literary reworking of a familiar historical story.
A fantastical reimagining of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s bloody defeat at Little Bighorn, told from the perspective of an investigating detective.
Capt. Thomas Weir—one of the survivors of the massacre at Little Bighorn over which Custer presided—dies suddenly in New York and without an obvious explanation, a hale man in his 30s. His death is ruled to have been caused by “congestion of the brain,” but the private detective summoned to inspect the scene of his demise, Mr. DelCol, notices the look of unalloyed terror on his face. DelCol is hired by the New York Life Insurance Company to investigate the matter further, more particularly what precisely happened at Little Bighorn; many of the officers who died were bearers of insurance policies, and apparently there is reason to believe that “something happened out there—something beyond the ordinary, beyond the official tale,” a suggestion chillingly described by author Corrigan (Aidan, 2005, etc.). DelCol contacts his uncle—Lt. Col. Paris DelCol—who helps him join an Army detail sent to recover the bodies of the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry who perished that fateful day, an opportunity to interview survivors. The deeper DelCol digs, the more certain he becomes that the prevailing wisdom about Custer’s debacle is suspicious. As one officer incredulously puts it: “Hell, how does an entire regiment—an entire crack regiment; hell, the crack regiment—go in against a band of savages and get annihilated?” DelCol also begins to suspect that whatever did happen that day might require an explanation that defies the possibilities of both science and ordinary experience and that his inquires very well might endanger his life. Blending Custer and others with fictional characters like DelCol, the author’s tale is not a conventional rehashing of a historical event well covered by historians and novelists alike; in fact, it’s a rare literary treat, the refreshingly imaginative refashioning of a well-known story so original it becomes entirely renewed. Also, Corrigan is impressively skillful at blurring the line between the plausible and supernatural. This is a riveting book, dramatically powerful and historically astute.
A brilliant literary reworking of a familiar historical story.Pub Date: July 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-7755-5
Page Count: 520
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Irritatingly trite woman-in-periler from lawyer-turned-novelist Baldacci. Moving away from the White House and the white-shoe Washington law firms of his previous bestsellers (Absolute Power, 1996; Total Control, 1997), Baldacci comes up with LuAnn Tyler, a spunky, impossibly beautiful, white-trash truck stop waitress with a no-good husband and a terminally cute infant daughter in tow. Some months after the birth of Lisa, LuAnn gets a phone call summoning her to a make-shift office in an unrented storefront of the local shopping mall. There, she gets a Faustian offer from a Mr. Jackson, a monomaniacal, cross-dressing manipulator who apparently knows the winning numbers in the national lottery before the numbers are drawn. It seems that LuAnn fits the media profile of what a lottery winner should be—poor, undereducated but proud—and if she's willing to buy the right ticket at the right time and transfer most of her winnings to Jackson, she'll be able to retire in luxury. Jackson fails to inform her, however, that if she refuses his offer, he'll have her killed. Before that can happen, as luck would have it, LuAnn barely escapes death when one of husband Duane's drug deals goes bad. She hops on a first-class Amtrak sleeper to Manhattan with a hired executioner in pursuit. But executioner Charlie, one of Jackson's paid handlers, can't help but hear wedding bells when he sees LuAnn cooing with her daughter. Alas, a winning $100- million lottery drawing complicates things. Jackson spirits LuAnn and Lisa away to Sweden, with Charlie in pursuit. Never fear. Not only will LuAnn escape a series of increasingly violent predicaments, but she'll also outwit Jackson, pay an enormous tax bill to the IRS, and have enough left over to honeymoon in Switzerland. Too preposterous to work as feminine wish-fulfillment, too formulaic to be suspenseful. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection)
Pub Date: Dec. 2, 1997
ISBN: 0-446-52259-7
Page Count: 528
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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