An abused Detroit girl with a history of pathological lying realizes her squeaky-clean adoptive father is the worst kind of bad news—but when she finally speaks out, nobody believes her. Really, though, the adoption doesn't sound quite kosher in the first place: the Lockwoods—Korean War historian Bonner, campaigning hard for dean of Madisonia College, and his pregnant wife, Maureen, who is a Caldecott-nominated children's author- -opening their suburban home to Dani McVie, a coke-head hooker's 13-year-old daughter. Even Vivian Clavell, Dani's caseworker, thinks the match is too good to be true. When Dani starts to notice that Bonner takes his young nieces off for some uncomfortable private sessions; when he starts leaving his locked study to spend extra time with her; when he touches her in ways that make her flash-back to life on the streets with her mother, Fay; and when he even acts suspiciously with his baby daughter, Whitney—well, even Dani doesn't believe the evidence at first. Her tutor recoils, as does Maureen, at the very suggestion: ``He had published two books and uncounted numbers of professional articles,'' unlike ``dirty old men in stained raincoats.'' So Dani, not knowing that Vivian is on the way to help, grabs baby Whitney and takes off in the middle of the party celebrating Bonner's deanship. She heads for a 14- year-old buddy exiled to a military school for getting on his father's nerves, but she runs instead right into Fay, who's come to spirit her off to Detroit on behalf of her menacing pimp. Since the plot is nothing more than an excuse for keeping the principals out of each others' way until the climax, there's nothing to do but watch everybody let Dani down—because of disbelief, lack of authority, or geographical distance—until Grice (The Cutting Hours, 1993) mercifully brings down the curtain.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-85728-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
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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