Just the right mix of psychological incisiveness and historical drama: a bold story of displaced people and misdirected...
After a bizarre murder, the powder keg that is 1920s Palestine threatens to explode.
Writing a thriller masquerading as a literary novel, Wilson (The Hiding Room, 1995, etc.) hurls us right into the thick of a Palestine still healing from the wounds of WWI, chafing under British rule, and fast swelling with Zionist activists. All starts off on a beautiful summer night that’s shattered by the murder of an Orthodox Jewish man inexplicably dressed in Arab garb. Witness to the killing are Mark and Joyce Bloomberg—Mark a Jewish painter who’s been drummed out of the London scene by scathing reviews, and Joyce an American gentile dilettante with a strangely fixated devotion to the Zionist cause. The third side of this triangle is Robert Kirsch, a British policeman who is just as blase about his Jewish heritage as Mark is, and also just as attracted to the nervy, live-wire Joyce. Kirsch’s superior, an old-school, stiff-upper-lip type of the most enjoyable sort, proclaims himself a fan of Mark’s work and hires him to head off into the Transjordan to paint, conveniently leaving the door open for Kirsch and Joyce’s doomed affair. As often happens in books where writers have a larger agenda than simply puzzling out a crime, the murder investigation quickly becomes a quite desultory affair, with the primary suspect—a young Arab boy who may have been having an affair with the victim—being hidden from the cops by those who would prefer Jerusalem not explode in riots upon his arrest. What really interests Wilson, and reasonably so, is the ambivalent nature of the newly arrived Jews in Palestine, the barely concealed disdain they’re held in by the stretched-thin British authorities and the razor’s edge all of them walk.
Just the right mix of psychological incisiveness and historical drama: a bold story of displaced people and misdirected passions.Pub Date: June 2, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-42209-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Short, to the point, and absolutely unremarkable: sure to be another medium-hot romance-lite hit for Sparks, who at the very...
A mother unburdens a story of past romance to her troubled daughter for no good reason.
Adrienne Willis is a middle-aged mother with three kids who, not surprisingly, finds herself in an emotional lurch after her husband dumps her for a younger, prettier thing. Needing to recharge her batteries, Adrienne takes a holiday, watching over her friend’s small bed-and-breakfast in the North Carolina beach town of Rodanthe. Then Dr. Paul Flanner appears, himself a cold fish in need of a little warming up. This is the scene laid out by Adrienne to her daughter, Amanda, in a framing device of unusual crudity from Sparks (A Bend in the Road, 2001, etc.). Amanda’s husband has recently died and she hasn’t quite gotten around to figuring out how to keep on living. Imagining that nothing is better for a broken heart than somebody else’s sad story, Adrienne tells her daughter about the great lost love of her life. Paul came to Rodanthe in order to speak with the bereaved family of a woman who had just died after he had operated on her. Paul, of course, was not to blame, but still he suffers inside. Add to that a recent divorce and an estranged child and the result is a tortured soul whom Adrienne finds absolutely irresistible. Of course, the beach, an impending storm, the fact that there are no other visitors around, a roaring fireplace, and any number of moments that could have been culled from a J. Crew catalogue and a Folgers’s commercial make romance just about inevitable. Sparks couldn’t be less subtle in this harshly mechanical story that adheres to formula in a way that would make an assembly-line romance writer blush.
Short, to the point, and absolutely unremarkable: sure to be another medium-hot romance-lite hit for Sparks, who at the very least can never be accused of overstaying his welcome.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2002
ISBN: 0-446-53133-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
© Copyright 2025 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.
