A second novel that’s several cuts above the average thriller, largely because it keeps to a human level and oils its wheels with immensely amusing non sequiturs. Once again, Mills (Rising Phoenix,1997) focuses on a quasi-religious group as a basis for the story’s moral ambiguities. This time, it’s the Church of the Evolution, whose 11 million clean-cut members parallel Scientology’s in paying heavy dues to rise through stages and achieve jealously guarded top status as “clears.” The group in this case is led not by L. Ron Hubbard but by the much more brilliant and human 80-year-old Albert Kneiss. Like Scientology, the Church has its so-called enemies in Germany, but here this is only a publicity ploy to attract Americans devoted to religious freedom. Kneiss, however, the messenger of God who returns to Earth every 2,000 years, is dying—or rather ascending to God—and a replacement leader is needed. This turns out to be Kneiss’s long-hidden granddaughter Jennifer Davis, whose mother is dead but who has been adopted by secret Church members Eric and Patricia Davis. All along, the Church’s business and membership sides have been run by Sara Renslier, Mills’s charismatic villain, who now has Jennifer kidnaped and her “parents” killed before her eyes. Investigating is Mark Beamon, a loose cannon FBI agent who’s been given a post in Flagstaff to run. Overweight, overdrinking Beamon is no beauty but has a very heady IQ and the highest success rate in the Bureau for solving kidnapings. Now, though, he finds himself up against an organization with fantastic powers, with members (like the Mormons) everywhere—in Congress, the Bureau, the police. Soon, his credit cards are turned to zilch, his every move dogged, a painful rumor is spread that he’s a child molester, and news stories appear about his drinking. Even the Bureau’s ready to crush him. Mills shapes his stereotypes with human clay, and excels at one-liners that quickly draw a reader into his spirited storytelling.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-101250-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
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
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