A well-cast, effective portrayal of a small town rallying for its own.
In novelist Wemlinger’s (Operation Light Switch, 2017, etc.) tale for our times, a soldier loses his legs.
Maj. David Keller’s promising career comes to an abrupt end when an IED blows off his legs, with not even enough left to make prosthetics possible. Physically his chances of recovery are good, but he is as depressed and suicidal as one would expect. And adrift. When he left Onekama, Michigan, for West Point there was bad blood, mostly between him and his dad. So he soon cut all ties with his family and his hometown, including with his high school sweetheart, Maggie Lassiter. When we meet Maggie, she is married to Ray McCall, a real brute. Their divorce only enrages Ray further. He will get her back, and any suspected rivals will feel his righteous wrath. Meanwhile, the whole town pulls together to welcome David home. Reluctantly, he goes along with this; however, secretly he is still plotting his suicide. But he needs to make amends with his dad, now slipping into dementia, and of course there is still a spark for Maggie. The turning point comes when Ray tries to kill him. Instead, he kills Ray with the same pistol that he’d bought to do himself in. He faces trial, which may end with a promising future with Maggie. Wemlinger knows how to plot a novel and pace it well. And his characters grip us. There is PJ who loves his big brother and has now reversed the roles, taking care of David. Ray McCall is a truly bad dude, so easy to hate. Emily, Maggie’s girlfriend, is the sidekick we all recognize. Trial scenes are always grabbers, and Wemlinger does not disappoint (he also has lot of fun with the pompous lawyer Myles Wingate).
A well-cast, effective portrayal of a small town rallying for its own.Pub Date: March 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-943338-17-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Chandler Lake Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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