A blithe, goofy, hit-and-miss fantasia.
In this maritime adventure, a castaway meets a ghost and discovers that his spiritual apotheosis involves strafing bad guys from a glitzy yacht.
Ruined in the real estate collapse, 55-year-old British-American ex-cop Jonathan Porter has nothing left except his ability to communicate with spirits. That serves him well when a plane crash deposits him on an uncharted Caribbean island inhabited only by the shade of the Commander, a crusty British naval officer marooned there 100 years before. With plentiful fish, a magic pool of healing rainwater and lots of automatic rifles and ammo gleaned from the drug- and gun-running gangs who occasionally do battle offshore, Jonathan thrives, adopting the motto “How lucky was that!” Alas, his spirit guides insist that he shove off from his island paradise and fulfill his destiny by helping to cast down “the traders and money-makers”—jacked-up credit card rates are a sore point—and usher in world peace. Fortunately, his luck holds when it comes to pursuing that mission. With the Commander’s spectral assistance, Jonathan commandeers a 200-foot, $80 million yacht; acquires diamonds, gold doubloons and a trust fund so immense that he crafts an economic stimulus program for the Bahamas, where he is hailed as a deity; and recruits crew members who look just as good slaughtering pirates with long-range sniper fire as they do sipping champagne in their bikinis. There are many clashing genres of wish-fulfillment here—Crusoe-esque idylls and New Age mysticism colliding with special ops shoot-’em-ups and girls-gone-wild lasciviousness; Capra-style populism bumping against luxury cruising and high-end retail. The story sometimes languishes in the doldrums during extended scenes of shopping sprees and Jacuzzi parties, despite the Commander’s efforts to shake things up by invisibly levitating the drinks. Still, Cross pens some lively, intriguing set pieces, and his commitment to gonzo escapism lends the proceedings a certain charm.
A blithe, goofy, hit-and-miss fantasia.Pub Date: March 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-1460998014
Page Count: 256
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2011
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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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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