Another well-written mystery featuring murders and secrets in a harsh, haunting landscape.
In this third volume in a series, a Nebraska attorney with psychic abilities investigates some old murders, putting herself and others in danger.
Megan Docket considers herself a magnet for trouble. Though not yet 30, she’s managed to kick a few hornets’ nests, not to mention she’s “killed three men in three years.” She had good reasons, but the memories disturb her. Four months pregnant and reconciled with her husband, Brian, she’s not planning on more trouble, but newly recovered evidence stirs up the decades-old disappearance of three women and a subsequent house fire. No bodies were ever found, but a man was convicted, who admitted to arson but not murder. Walking the property where the house once stood, Megan hears voices in the wind, a special ability she possesses. Unbearable, agonizing wails of two women tell her that she must investigate and that the third woman didn’t die at the scene. But when Megan looks into several fishy matters, she’s strongly warned to back off—as when her horse is shot and killed. Brian wants her to drop it, but he can’t influence her; that, and other tensions, threaten their marriage. Megan draws on her close network of friends and relatives for support, and though she unravels several lingering mysteries, finding the truth comes at a very high cost. Bruce (Alone in the Wind, 2016, etc.) again offers a tight, nicely observed mystery with thriller and paranormal elements, continuing to develop relationships from the first two novels. She handles Megan and Brian’s marriage problems with great sensitivity to both points of view, and Megan’s bulldog inability to let things go becomes central to the plot, a good tie-in. Bruce also brings in the paranormal aspect with subtlety; Megan’s insights provide her with important clues, but her ability isn’t overmined for plot convenience. The plot, with multiple interrelating characters and events from both now and 20 years ago, can get a little confusing, but Bruce does a fairly good job of keeping the reader oriented.
Another well-written mystery featuring murders and secrets in a harsh, haunting landscape.Pub Date: July 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-57638-522-7
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Merriam Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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