Weighty with nervous fears detailed at length, yet gripping all the way.
Fast and literate suspense by an ex-con and former narc (The Catch, 1998, etc.).
Wozencraft’s life experiences stand in well for her story about 24-year-old female cop Diane Wellman, in Bolton, Texas, who is falsely accused of cocaine possession and sentenced to a federal prison where she bunks with Gail Rubin, who has been in for 20 years, just watched her parole interview go south, and has 12 more years to go. She too was falsely accused of being part of an aggressive civil-rights team’s successful bank robbery that caused two deaths. When arrested, she’d also supposedly been in possession of a cellar full of firearms and explosives. As a cop, Diane had come upon a triple murder in the woods and seen the white murderer as he fled. The police chief, however, jails a black perp, who lands on death row. To shut Diane up, the chief has her doped with knockout drops, plants cocaine in her fridge, and alerts the DEA to arrest her. At first, Diane just wants to serve her ten years, but when Gail prepares for a jailbreak Diane decides to go along, head back for Bolton, and find some transcripts that will exonerate her and free the perp on death row. The two women manage their escape but find that, as they flee, life on the outside is far more harrowing than life in a cell. Both turn paranoid about pursuit and the cop that may walk up to them at any moment and send them back to jail. They thumb a ride to Manhattan, pick up Gail’s family money, get fancy hair styling and bright garb, entrain to Chicago, then separate and meet up in Oklahoma City. Although the suspense remains heavy, the larger subject is the mental state of being prison-breakers wanted in a nationwide manhunt. The two plan to fly to France—but first Diane must clear her name.
Weighty with nervous fears detailed at length, yet gripping all the way.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-28959-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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