An easy, fast-paced tale of criminal intrigue that’s part Wild West, part Fargo.
Kildare, the author of The Tragedy of Beauty (2018), offers a neo-Western set on the prairies of North Dakota during a 21st-century oil boom.
In the early 2000s, precise directional drilling became a viable technology for recovering oil, so regions located over the Bakken Formation (a massive rock under the ground in Montana, North Dakota, and parts of Canada) saw rapid upticks in industry, revenue, and population. The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, nestled in the northeastern corner of North Dakota, was no exception. But with the rapid boom came social consequences, and Gena Blood Crow, a young tribal cop, is determined to guard her community from the encroaching presence of drugs, crime, and corruption. Although her mission is personal—her own brother was murdered by members of a drug cartel—she’s often frustrated by her perpetually understaffed department and a seemingly inescapable maze of competing jurisdictions. Her uncle, the stubborn Boots Charging Thunder, decides to take revenge into his own hands and organize a local militia to eliminate the cartel by whatever means necessary. Law enforcement, the militia, and the cartel are soon heading toward one another on an inevitable crash course. What could have been a simplistic tale of good guys versus bad is complicated by the machinations of local bureaucracy and politics—and by villains who fall in love with heroes’ innocent relatives, which is true to the nature of life in a small town. One cartel leader stands out as a memorably complex figure: Rafael Vega is a seasoned drug runner and a coldblooded killer, but he also senses others’ sadness and feels guilty about the blood on his hands; he’s even conversant in chaos theory. An unexpected love affair also gives him a profound desire to change his life. Kildare’s tightly controlled sentences and smooth dialogue are engaging and chock-full of splendid detail aside from the occasional cliché (“The puppet had become the puppet master”).
An easy, fast-paced tale of criminal intrigue that’s part Wild West, part Fargo.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9963057-4-7
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Kildare Press LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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