Next book

THE SHADOW BOX

Maxim (Time Out of Mind, 1986, etc.) forsakes the astral plane for a suspenser whose down-and-dirty plot turns on the megabuck traffic in bogus prescription drugs. Michael Fallon's charmed life suddenly goes badly wrong. His beloved uncle Jake (a political fixer with connections throughout New York City) is brutally murdered, and his fiancÇe is gunned down in a botched convenience-store robbery. Shortly thereafter, Michael is fired by the Wall Street investment firm that pays him big money to analyze the pharmaceuticals stocks, and he's assaulted on a well-lit Manhattan street. Convinced someone wants him dead as well as discredited, he goes to ground in off-season Martha's Vineyard. Back in the Big Apple, Brendan Doyle, a godfatherly lawyer, is digging into the death of his old pal Jake and the real cause of Michael's dismissal—an inquiry that eventually leads to Baron Franz Gerhard Rast von Scharnhorst, an ostensibly respectable German industrialist whom Jake, years before, had forced to flee the US. The powerful head of AdlerChemiker AG, a Munich-based multinational that, among other dubious achievements, has gained working control of the lucrative global trade in counterfeit drugs, Baron Franz is mounting a belated vendetta. While young Michael's friends and foes stalk one another, he falls in love with Megan Cole (a year-round island resident with a past), buys a guest house in Edgartown, and finally discloses his whereabouts to Doyle. The body count climbs, and heavies in the pay of the vindictive baron fall to Michael & Co. in a climactic clash. With astute assistance from Doyle, the last of the Fallons is then able to settle outstanding accounts with AdChem and its hirelings; at the close, he lights out after Megan, who needs to be convinced they have a future together. A slick, engrossing entertainment with plausibly motivated characters and chilling detail on an underground enterprise that's evidently as remunerative as narcotics. (First printing of 50,000)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-380-97300-6

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1996

Categories:
Next book

TRUE BETRAYALS

Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.

Pub Date: June 13, 1995

ISBN: 0-399-14059-X

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995

Categories:
Next book

FIREFLY LANE

Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...

Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.

Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?

Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3

Page Count: 496

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007

Close Quickview