A gripping murder mystery that pits a woman’s ex-lover against his replacement. De Michiel’s (Trust, 2011) second novel opens with the familiar sight of a man nursing a broken heart. Kelvin Kempleton has lost not only Cynthia, the woman he dated for six years, but also his job as a stand-up comedian. As Kelvin picks up a lonely takeout dinner, his ear catches the sound of Cynthia’s distinct laugh. He sees her arm in arm with the wealthy Marcus Weatherly, and they get into his Porsche to drive back to Marcus’ mansion. Unable to stop himself, Kelvin follows them and, later, lets himself into Marcus’ house. While there, in a sudden moment of desperation, he grabs a painting from the wall and dashes into the night. The next day, he’s relieved to see that there’s no news of his break-in, but his relief turns to anguish when two police officers appear at his door. Instead of questioning him about the stolen painting, they want to know if he had anything to do with a shooting that took place at the house, injuring Cynthia and killing Marcus. This shocking turn of events becomes more perplexing after Kelvin meets Maze Willow, a woman who introduces him to an ancient religion filled with secrets regarding the invisible hands of fate. Kelvin begins to understand that he must correct his action but then discovers that the painting is actually counterfeit—and that an assassin has been hired to hunt down its thief. This well-paced, readable mystery unlocks the underworld of the art industry and also takes a hard look at issues of fate and destiny. Kelvin is a sympathetic, likable hero whose quest for absolution and desire for a second chance are relatable and heartfelt. Readers will appreciate the book’s many layers; it works both as a plot-driven thriller and as a story of soul-searching and personal growth. A multilayered, thoughtful mystery that’s full of surprises.
Pub Date: May 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-0987220028
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Lindenfels Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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