A quirky, ever-so-chic tale of death, fast cars, and ecotage in the Pacific Northwest, and a young woman in over her head, from Oregon journalist Rosemary, whose background in environmental issues and their local implications is amply applied in this debut. Waif-like Devin Carey, eking out an existence in Oregon as a radio newshound, finds life suddenly out of her control when she and a close friend, Marlow, at the station are fired for taking liberties on the air—and when Marlow dies soon thereafter under mysterious circumstances. Already tied to the monkey-wrench underground by virtue of her long association with a hard-driving, secretive California couple, Dana and Claire the Ice Queen—who became her ``adopted godparents'' when she was a teenager—Carey learns more about a shadowy, highly successful band of ecoterrorists called the S&D Group than is good for her when she investigates her friend's death. Taken under Dana's wing for protection (and also into bed to resume an old affair), she's moved from one safe house to another to foil the FBI search for her, and is eventually told why: because a Group plan to destroy the equipment of a CIA-financed air-transport company that had eliminated all local competition, blatantly carrying out dirty tricks in the region and elsewhere, involved virtually everyone she knows, including the dead Marlow. When the FBI grabs a couple of mercenaries and the coast is again clear, Carey decides to go back to live with her garden-happy grandmother in California. In the tradition of the late Edward Abbey, first-novelist Rosemary's ecoyarn is reduced mostly to ecoglitter and West Coast trendiness, with more activist yakking than action. Environmentally friendly, but a dud.
Pub Date: Feb. 2, 1993
ISBN: 0-930773-20-9
Page Count: 193
Publisher: Black Heron
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1992
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
