A deftly plotted, briskly paced psychological thriller: solid storytelling in the dependable Wozencraft manner (Wanted,...
Victimized exotic dancer seeks payback through stripping.
In Kit Metcalf’s mind, it goes like this: When she writhes, wriggles and wraps herself erotically around a pole, tantalizing the covey of slavering males safely caged in their reinforced-glass spectator booths, it’s a form of vengeance, the stuff of power. “She could make them feel, if not exactly as she had that night—the night that would not go away—at least something of the way she had felt. . . . She could make them helpless.” Kit can certainly do drama queen with the best of them, but her occasional scenery-chewing here seems justified by the explosive subject matter. It’s not just the brutality of that long-ago rape that has Kit smoldering. Something even more hurtful lurks relentlessly among her memories of childhood. What’s most insidiously disturbing and traumatizing about it is that it’s something she can’t be sure actually happened; Kit’s subconscious is first-rate at keeping secrets. Real or chimerical, a pervasive ugliness has poisoned her mind, jaundiced the way she views her family and the world around her and sent her in desperation to psychiatrist Emily Wolfe’s couch—a place somebody obviously doesn’t want her to be. Wolfe’s office is ransacked, Kit’s file stolen, the psychiatrist herself is attacked and seriously hurt. Is it a ruthless intent to end this particular doctor-patient relationship? Why? What is it that must remain buried? What does the murder of Kit’s sister have to do with it? These questions, disturbing enough, are nothing to the answers that, when they come, will leave Kit shattered and perhaps permanently scarred.
A deftly plotted, briskly paced psychological thriller: solid storytelling in the dependable Wozencraft manner (Wanted, 2004, etc.).Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-29063-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006
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
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
© 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
