Sugary New Age nonsense cripples Grimwood's (Replay, 1986, etc.) mildly inventive eco-thriller, in which humans and dolphins join forces to save Santa Barbara, Calif., from volcanic disaster. Dolphins, it turns out, employ a sophisticated imaging language to talk to each other; their conversations consist of sonic pictures rather than grammatically arranged words. Scientist Sheila Roberts makes this discovery at almost the same time that she learns of her own status as a telepathic Linker, selected in childhood by the dolphins to act as a contact for the New Directives, a program of interspecies cooperation commissioned by the omniscient Sources (whales) and pursued by members of dolphin society who possess the Linking Talent. Sheila has two Linker confederates, also chosen by the dolphins: her lover, Daniel Colter, a gruff young journalist, and Antonio Batera, a salty old Portuguese tuna fisherman whose boat is responsible for routine dolphin/porpoise slaughters. They're eventually joined by petroleum engineer Jeb Sloane, whose high-tech, laser-drilling oil rig imperils Santa Barbara; by inadvertently punching into an unknown magma chamber, the corporation he works for is about to unleash the molten fury of the planet's core. Jeb's not a Linker, but Sheila and Daniel have no trouble convincing him to help them steal the drilling equipment to divert the underwater eruption harmlessly out to sea, especially after he sees videotaped dolphin-images warning of the potential threat. Grimwood manages to cram several dolphin characters into all this as well: Ch*Tril, a dolphin historian, along with her mate, Dj\Tal (both are capable of linking), struggle to bring the New Directives to humanity while fighting a bloody civil war with their killer-whale Death-Cousins. The whole story transpires under the placid watchfulness of the Sources' universal mind, which has decided to interrupt the human march of environmental destruction. Just the sort of thing dolphins would make fun of, if they could read.
Pub Date: Feb. 24, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-08799-X
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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
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