A step up for Amiel (Star Time, 1991, etc.) as he plots a strong courtroom meller that hooks you fast—and pulls you straight through to a knotty, post-courtroom surprise ending. Amiel also goes for deeper thoughts than usual, with burned- out hero, criminal defender Dan Lazar, sunk in spiritual disbelief. The main story details the high-gloss lives of old money in Philadelphia, but it's anchored in the gutter tricks of Lazar as he gets a rapist-murderer off the hook, as well as a boorish Mafia chieftain. Lazar's reputation is so shady, in fact, that even though he's innocent of wrongdoing his license gets lifted for six months, a bad blot on his honor. Meanwhile, he falls for Susan Boelter, wife-then-widow of wealthy publisher Peter Boelter—head of the prestigious Philadelphia Herald, whose city desk, pressroom, union problems, and plant layout get plenty of play. Peter wants to sell the family paper to the owner of the ailing local tabloid, the Mirror, the Herald's only rival. The Herald will then fade into the Mirror. Susan, however, has inherited controlling stock because Peter's father didn't trust his wild son, and she's against the sale (which would bring Peter personally $60 million). So Peter sues for divorce, cuts Susan off from all income, and—trying to sway her vote—behaves like a monster, especially in seducing the affections of their daughter Karen. When Peter is found dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs, the medical examiner declares the death a homicide by a blunt instrument. Susan calls in Dan Lazar to defend her, who pleads to have his license returned for the case. Subplots about the rapist gone rampant and other dirty deeds multiply until the day in court arrives.... Reader sympathies are dizzied by the resolution's who-did- what-to-whom tennis match, but you're likely to go through with it. Neat storytelling with the usual suspects—though you'll never guess who did it.
Pub Date: June 2, 1993
ISBN: 0-517-57520-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
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
BOOK REVIEW
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