An engrossing tale of a lawyer’s determination to legitimize clairvoyance, even if some readers may remain unconvinced.
An attorney who deals in scientific facts must prove the validity of psychic phenomena for a negligence lawsuit involving a girl’s death in this legal drama.
Dave Willard is a California patent lawyer who has no time for “New Age mumbo jumbo,” which his schoolteacher girlfriend, Raven, fully embraces. So he’s surprised when his boss at Bracken & Stevens assigns him a case that will entail arguing in favor of a man’s apparent clairvoyant ability. The suit’s against a county sheriff, who disregarded former CIA psychic spy Steve Manteo’s help in finding a girl, Lucy, who was lost in the mountains during a blistering cold winter. Manteo psychically deduced Lucy’s location, but the sheriff refused to send searchers to that area, where, much later, they found the girl frozen to death. Dave sets his skepticism aside and, in fact, has already had a potential vision—a dream of a car collision that may have occurred afterward. He preps for the trial by interviewing people to establish scientific logic to clairvoyance and authenticate Manteo’s neglected credentials. Unfortunately, a group called Skeptemos, intent on ridding the world of bad science, has someone following Dave with a possibly sinister agenda. Renshaw (Science, Remote Viewing and ESP, 2013, etc.) excels at presenting much of the psychic phenomena in a credible light. Dave, for one, makes the trial about Manteo’s qualifications, including his CIA achievements recognized by the U.S. president. Similarly, Dave’s shift to belief in clairvoyance (he ultimately has another vision filled with World War I images) is gradual, not something that happens instantaneously. But while the narrative plainly explains psychic phenomena, it won’t necessarily sway skeptics. An expert on the stand, for example, expounding on remote viewing, states: “We all are mental space-time travelers” without listing hard facts for support. Grammatical and spelling errors, meanwhile, are hard to ignore, especially name variations (for example, Skeptemos is rendered four ways).
An engrossing tale of a lawyer’s determination to legitimize clairvoyance, even if some readers may remain unconvinced.Pub Date: May 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9966231-0-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Constellation
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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