A pleasant and well-made tale, the more agreeable for its light tone and touch.
Likable caper by Florey (Souvenir of Cold Springs, 2002, etc.) about a convivial set of Brooklyn artists who make the best of a bad world while fighting off serial rapists and hit men.
Most people move to the secluded Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg in search of cheap rents, large lofts, and a well-established arts scene; Marcus Mead moved there for its Zip Code (11211, one of the few palindromic Zip Codes in New York). This sort of thing is important to Marcus, who walks dogs for a living and grew up reading the White Pages for fun. One of his clients is Emily Lime, a divorced photographer who lives with a dog, a cockatoo, and a closet full of ugly paintings left to her by an old friend from the neighborhood. Emily has become increasingly fond of Marcus since he began walking her dog, a good sign that she is finally getting over her divorce, though it raises some problems, too. For one thing, Marcus is her stepson, born 20 years ago to her ex-husband Tad Hartwell and his old flame Summer Mead. He is also 16 years younger than Emily. And he has just been hired by Tad to murder Emily for $200,000. Marcus is at something of a loss: He’s never killed anyone before, and he rather likes Emily. But he also needs money for a pickup truck and has wanted some way of getting closer to his dad (who left him when he was eight) now that his mother has died. As Marcus begins to dig into the story of his father’s marriage to Emily, he makes a number of discoveries that no one (or, at least, few people) might have guessed at. Does he go through with the plan? The most that can decently be said is that he solves his father’s problems in the end.
A pleasant and well-made tale, the more agreeable for its light tone and touch.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2004
ISBN: 0-425-19599-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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