Rachel’s scars and patient resourcefulness drive a suspenseful, disturbing fable that ultimately makes little distinction...
Parsons (Courtship Gift, 2000, etc.) presents a grim thriller that asks whether redemption might not be worse than the original sin.
Twelve years ago, Rachel Beckett was sent to prison for the cold-blooded shooting of her husband Martin, an Irish police officer who had been brutally punishing Rachel for an affair with his brother Daniel that resulted in Amy, the daughter he had thought was his. Rachel went to prison protesting her innocence, claiming that Daniel, whom she had called for help, had pulled the trigger. Released on parole, Rachel begins a new life, closely watched by her parole officer, Andy Bowen, and police officer Jack Donnelly. When her dearest friend from prison, beautiful young Judith Hill, a recovering heroin addict starting over at college, is tortured and murdered, Donnelly investigates. Bowen threatens to tell Donnelly about Rachel’s illegal meeting with Judith unless his parolee baby-sits his invalid wife. The most obvious suspects for Judith’s murder are her oh-so-respectable father, Dr. Mark Hill, and her equally beautiful brother Stephen. Judith’s long-estranged mother Elizabeth, an artist living in a nature preserve in England, returns to Ireland for Judith’s funeral and insists that Mark and Stephen are innocent. Her defense is too late for both: Mark hangs himself rather than face a humiliating investigation, and Stephen loses his mind and begins decapitating small animals. Neither confesses, and Donnelly has his doubts. Meantime, Rachel tries to reconnect with 17-year-old Amy, but finds that she hates her mother. Instead, Rachel does manage to insert herself into the lives of Daniel’s wife and two small children and, eventually, back into Daniel’s bed. Simultaneously, Daniel strikes up a relationship with Amy. Protection? Possession? Who is the cat, who the mouse?
Rachel’s scars and patient resourcefulness drive a suspenseful, disturbing fable that ultimately makes little distinction between making amends and taking revenge.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2001
ISBN: 0-7432-1931-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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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