An engaging legal thriller that brings to mind the intelligence and ambiguity of The Good Wife.
In the follow-up to Compton’s debut novel, Tell No Lies (2008), a formerly adulterous district attorney must defend himself in court when a 16-year-old girl wrongly accuses him of raping her.
Jack Hilliard thought he’d put the past behind him. It’s been four years since we last saw him, when he was elected St. Louis district attorney, cheated on his wife with fellow lawyer Jenny Dodson and got embroiled in a murder case as a result. But when he takes too long driving his son’s girlfriend, Celeste—who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jenny—home after she and his son come home drunk, he unwittingly opens a door to the events he’s been trying to forget. Although Jack parked by the side of the road for hours because Celeste insisted that her father would be angry if he found out she’d been drinking, Celeste accuses Jack of raping her. The accusation and resulting charges, along with Jenny’s mysterious reappearance, throw a wrench in Jack’s life. His wife grows distant, his son won’t talk to him, and he can’t quite bring himself to stay away from Jenny, even if only to help her try to figure out who has been sending her threatening letters. Nor can he figure out why Celeste is accusing him of something he didn’t do, though he suspects her father has been abusing her. Compton, a former lawyer with a sharp legal eye, is tuned into the moral ambiguities that can arise in a prosecution. Her strongest writing comes in the riveting courtroom scenes, and her understanding of her characters is equally nuanced. Readers will have a hard time not rooting for Jack, a compelling if sometimes frustrating man whose innocence is never in doubt, though his adeptness at lying to himself about his own morality and what he really wants with Jenny isn’t particularly admirable or attractive. Aside from an unrealistic climax that takes Compton away from her strengths, the absorbing story makes for a worthy sequel.
An engaging legal thriller that brings to mind the intelligence and ambiguity of The Good Wife.Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988793224
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Fresh Fork Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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