Frenetic violence aside: a sweetly redemptive if strained tale of heroism, faith, and rough justice.
Second-novelist Harris brings back characters from his Civil War–set Delirium of the Brave (1999), this time serving up a slew of Nazi spies, IRA agents, voodoo practitioners, religious mystics, and upper-crust locals—all of whose interactions too adroitly lead to one good man’s triumph.
It’s now the 1930s, and young Irish priest Michael Mulvaney arrives in Savannah, an IRA killer turned seminarian. Mulvaney has repented his ways, unlike fellow IRA member Francis Quinn, who in 1942 agrees to spy for the Nazis in return for guns for the IRA. Trained in Germany, Quinn demonstrates his loyalty by cold-bloodedly killing a Jewish prisoner in front of a young Jewish girl. Dropped from a submarine off the coast of Georgia, he kills his two handlers after they put him ashore, then makes his way to the McQueen shipyard, where he befriends the owner’s son Jimmy. When Jimmy joins up, so does Francis, having expediently changed sides after bumping off his local handler so he won’t be betrayed. After the war, Jimmy marries and has son Will , whose story now becomes our focus. Francis, along with two black voodoo practitioners who live on nearby Jesus Island, where the McQueens have a house, feel protective of Will, who’s destined for great things. Born with a harelip, Will endures surgery, military school, the loss of his legs in Vietnam, then, once home, goes into politics with his father’s blessing and Francis’s support. When a sunken German submarine is found with documents and photos of Francis in its safe, a mean-spirited enemy of Will’s obtains copies and gets ready to destroy Will’s career in Congress with the revelations of his old friend Francis’s past. Will is innocent and decent, though, so the forces of good rally to keep him safe for democracy—thanks to the serendipitous help of an alligator and some vengeful hoods.
Frenetic violence aside: a sweetly redemptive if strained tale of heroism, faith, and rough justice.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-26980-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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