With his third in a series, Newman remains in top form as our sharpest vampire novelist, a far more inventive stylist than Anne Rice. In Anno Dracula (1993), the Count married Queen Victoria and became England’s Prince Consort while Newman regaled himself with dense Victoriana. In The Bloody Red Baron (1995), German vampire battle-aces of WWI fought English vampire battle-aces while Newman reveled in the gallows humor of pilots on the edge of darkness. Now in exile, Vlad, Count Dracula, steals Victoria’s throne and is about to wed Moldavian princess Asa Vajda in Rome, circa 1959, amid the decay of the Via Veneto so richly observed by Federico Fellini in La Dolce Vita. Newman appropriates much of Fellini’s anti-plotting, or cumulative mode of storytelling, introducing the arrival by plane in Rome of the bustiferous starlet Malenka (Anita Ekberg), who’s greeted by battering flashbulbs and jaded tabloid journalist Marcello (Mastroianni). On hand from the earlier novels are vampire journalist Kate Reed and vampire detective Geneviäve DieudonnÇ (in the company of British secret agent Hamish Bond, a vampire with a license to kill), as well as fresh walk-ons amid the dress extras: a dissolute Errol Flynn, an enormous Orson Welles, H.P. Lovecraft’s re-animator Dr. Herbert West, Bride of Frankenstein’s Dr. Praetorius, and William Peter Blatty’s exorcist, Father Merrin. When Dracula is beheaded on the eve of his wedding, is Rome’s Crimson Executioner—who has been killing elderly vampires—the culprit? At last all converges on Mater Lachrymarum, the Mother of Tears, Rome’s four-fold guardian girl/youth/woman/crone who protects her city from the living dead. At heart a costume drama in dark glasses rather than tights, with Newman noting every Playboy club signet ring and Patek Lioncourt wristwatch worn by wealthy bloodsuckers. As did Fellini’s, Newman’s artistry meets the challenge with energy to spare.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7867-0558-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
