The first in a proposed series, readers will welcome the time spent with the enigmatic Mona Baker.
In Batts’ thriller, a woman learns whom to trust (or not) after her husband is arrested for drug trafficking and she becomes a target for murder.
When cops find a kilo of cocaine in the Bakers’ house, they arrest Exxon-Mobil VP Aaron and pressure his wife, Mona, into giving them proof of a secret bank account where Aaron’s stashed his drug money. And the police have leverage: They’ve found Mona’s sister, Simone, who disappeared nearly a decade ago and was presumed dead, and will keep her out of prison (for killing her rapist uncle) if Mona helps. Mona, however, knows nothing about Aaron’s drug trafficking, let alone any hidden money. She soon realizes that she’s being followed, and when she survives more than one attempt on her life, it’s clear that someone sees Mona as a loose end. Batts’ (Walls Fall Down, 2003) novel is a fascinating tale of a woman rediscovering her lost identity: Mona’s mother was a strict disciplinarian and raised her girls in a crime-riddled neighborhood, but the adult Mona, who admits to marrying Aaron for his money, has embraced an indulgent lifestyle. She finds her strength again, thanks to Simone, a sublime character who has made her own way without a rich husband. Mona is deeply flawed: She claims that the cops are using her to secure a case against Aaron, but Mona is likewise using numerous people, namely her various lovers—men and women whom she’s strung along with no intention of forging any emotional connection. What makes Mona a resounding protagonist is her acknowledgement of her weaknesses and her love for her 7-year-old daughter, Sophie. The story reads like a mystery; it begins by almost immediately asking questions: Is there a foreign bank account? Was the cocaine Aaron’s or, as he maintains, part of a frame-up? But, though answers eventually surface, it’s a bit disappointing that Mona doesn’t act as amateur sleuth or initiate her own investigation. Notwithstanding, there’s definitely suspense—Mona’s distrust of police is derived from Aaron’s friendship with the mayor and the possibility of corrupt cops.
The first in a proposed series, readers will welcome the time spent with the enigmatic Mona Baker.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692226377
Page Count: 276
Publisher: The Real Ideal, LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy,...
Britisher Haddon debuts in the adult novel with the bittersweet tale of a 15-year-old autistic who’s also a math genius.
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”—and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched—any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it—and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds—his mother. How can this be? Read and see. Neither parent, if truth be told, is the least bit prepossessing or more than a cutout. Christopher, though, with pet rat Toby in his pocket and advanced “maths” in his head, is another matter indeed, and readers will cheer when, way precociously, he takes his A-level maths and does brilliantly.
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.Pub Date: June 17, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50945-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
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