Flagrant overwriting, derivative plotting: a swashbuckler indeed.
Once again, the prolific Newcomb (coauthor: The Ghosts of Elkhorn, 1982, etc.) rounds up black-hearted villains, lionhearted heroes, and bosomy beauties for his 30-plus action-adventure tale.
It’s 1665, and young Henry Morgan is enslaved in Cuba, wicked Spaniards having carted him off, a mere child, from his native Wales. But he’s now 19, and someone certainly should have known better than to guard only lightly this future scourge of Spanish shipping—or to guard him heavily, for that matter, since it’s clear from the get-go that Henry is the stuff of superheroes, seldom to be fettered by ordinary restraints. So escape he does—in a manner sort of sluffed over by the author—in the process killing some Spaniards, stealing their ship, freeing a passel of pirates, then setting off with them as his unswervingly loyal crew. In due time he becomes “El Tigre de Caribe,” feared up and down the Caribbean—with certain notable exceptions, such as the lovely if tomboyish Nell Jolly, daughter of Morgan’s éminence gris. “Toto” (the Tiger’s pet name for her) adores him. To her considerable dismay, however, she discovers she’s not the only one. The aristocratic Elena Maria de Saucedo—she of the “perfect breasts,” “raven black” hair, “lustrous green eyes,” and “come-hither smile”—is also smitten. Highborn she may be, but trustworthy she’s not, as Henry discovers to his cost when she betrays him to the Dons. They throw him into their slammer, though not for long, of course. Before one can say “brethren of the blood,” he’s freebooting again—sacking Panama City, getting rich, undoing his enemies, marrying his sweetie, and making full sail back to Britain to become a knight of the realm.
Flagrant overwriting, derivative plotting: a swashbuckler indeed.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-26197-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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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