It’s not where the perpetually tipsy (or drunk) heroine ends up, but her journey that’s the most astute—and most...
Fearing she’s about to lose her secretary job, a woman trails her boss to Hawaii for a blackmailing opportunity—leverage to avoid potential termination—in Taylor’s debut comedy.
Calyssa Pantaleo’s inability to get along with Babette Hooks at Shred Unread in New York may have detrimental repercussions. Babette, secretary to CEO Mr. Grunt (the reputed philanderer’s nickname), spreads rumors that Calyssa’s bedding co-workers, including boss Adam Klutz. This leads to a bathroom scuffle, followed by Calyssa photoshopping Babette’s head onto a gorilla and inadvertently printing hundreds of copies for everyone to see. Mr. Grunt’s email requesting a Monday meeting convinces Calyssa he’s firing her after the weekend. So she redirects the Las Vegas trip with pals Chloe Tenderfoot and Natalia Romanova to Honolulu, where vacationing Adam has been ignoring her calls. If Calyssa can blackmail Adam (with nude pictures, perhaps?), he’ll have no choice but to fight for her job. Bringing along newly homeless Lindsay Goldplenty, the women soon realize that getting evidence of Adam cheating at a masquerade ball is not so easy. Natalia, for one, drunk at their New York departure, is upset they’re not in Vegas because she had a personal reason to be there. Add to that a possibly stolen wallet and Calyssa will need all the help and apple martinis she can get. The author packs a lot into the story, from a theme of women’s unfair treatment in the workplace (exclusively male company bigwigs) to absurdist comedy (Calyssa’s ridiculous plan). But the most intriguing facet is Calyssa herself, a generally unlikable protagonist who manages to garner sympathy, albeit slowly. Her first-person narrative, for example, designates names for people superficially, like Pug for a waitress with a “yippity-yappety” voice. But even if the martini lover doesn’t recognize her own flaws, she listens when someone points them out: Chloe asserts that Calyssa blames others for her problems. Identity metaphors are occasionally too blatant: a lost ID or using someone else’s; wearing masks at the ball with Halloween coming up. Some, however, are sublime, particularly transgendered Natalia, who’s preop but unquestionably “one of the girls.”
It’s not where the perpetually tipsy (or drunk) heroine ends up, but her journey that’s the most astute—and most facetious—aspect of this tale.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5170-9557-4
Page Count: 394
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Natural storyteller Hunter knows the value of the occasional poignant scene to give his firefights breathing room. Not for a...
In the category of slam-bang, testosterone-laden, body-bag filling, hellzapoppin' potboilers, this is as good as it gets.
For those who may have wondered about the gene pool that helped produce master sniper Bob Lee Swagger, the author's demigod of a series hero (Time to Hunt, 1998, etc.), here's the tell-all prequel. Earl Swagger, valiant marine, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, is Bob Lee's demigod of a daddy. We also meet Bob Lee's brave and beautiful mama. It's the summer of 1946, and Hot Springs, Arkansas, is under the thumb of gangster Owney Maddox, who has a dream: he wants to refashion Hot Springs into an oasis of sin, a place where Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, et al., will feel safe, comfortable, and cosseted. He’s halfway there. On the surface Special Prosecutor Fred C. Becker doesn't seem much of a deterrent, but Becker has a dream too: he wants to be Arkansas's youngest governor ever. Moreover, he has a plan: to bring Owney down by recruiting and training an elite task force that can strike hard, fast, and ruthlessly. Earl Swagger—who better?—is charged with the training. At first, things go right. The recruits are eager and motivated. Aided by the element of surprise, they deliver a series of blows that shake the Maddox realm to its Sodom-like foundations. But then Maddox, with the whole of New York gangsterdom to draw from, recruits his own elite force. The stage is set for blood-drenched confrontations, during which lots of bad men are killed, some good men are betrayed, and Earl performs exactly the way Bob Lee's progenitor should.
Natural storyteller Hunter knows the value of the occasional poignant scene to give his firefights breathing room. Not for a minute to be taken seriously, but, all in all, a blast.Pub Date: July 3, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-86360-X
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
An improvement over The Dead Zone, with King returning to his most tried-and-true blueprint. As in The Shining, the psi-carrier is a child, an eight-year-old girl named Charlie; but instead of foresight or hindsight, Charlie has firestarting powers. She looks and a thing pops into flame—a teddy bear, a nasty man's shoes, or (by novel's end) steel walls, whole houses, and stables and crowds of government villains. Charlie's parents Vicky and Andy were once college guinea pigs for drug experiments by The Shop, a part of the supersecret Department of Scientific Intelligence, and were given a hyperpowerful hallucinogen which affected their chromosomes and left each with strange powers of mental transference and telekinesis. When Vicky and Andy married, their genes produced Charlie and her wild talent for pyrokinesis: even as a baby in her crib, Charlie would start fires when upset and, later on, once set her mother's hands on fire. So Andy is trying to teach Charlie how to keep her volatile emotions in check. But when one day he comes home to find Vicky gruesomely dead in the ironing-board-closet, murdered by The Shop (all the experimental guinea pigs are being eliminated), Andy goes into hiding with Charlie in Manhattan and the Vermont backwoods—and Charlie uses her powers to set the bad men on fire and blow up their cars. They're soon captured, however, by Rainbird, a one-eyed giant Indian with a melted face—and father and daughter, separated, spend months being tested in The Shop. Then Andy engineers their escape, but when Andy is shot by Rainbird, Charlie turns loose her atomic eyes on the big compound. . . . Dumb, very, and still a far cry from the excitement of The Shining or Salem's Lot—but King keeps the story moving with his lively fire-gimmick and fewer pages of cotton padding than in his recent, sluggish efforts. The built-in readership will not be disappointed.
Pub Date: Sept. 29, 1980
ISBN: 0451167805
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1980
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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