A compelling mystery set in an industry that has radically changed over the past 50 years.
In Martz’s (Making Schools Better, 1997) first novel, a journalist in 1950s Detroit gets entangled in a mystery involving a murdered child, corrupt union organizers and a mayoral campaign.
Idealistic newspaper reporter Billy Morgan is covering the mysterious murder of 4-year-old Molly Demetrios. Police arrest a mentally disabled young man for the crime, but Morgan finds that there is barely any evidence tying him to the killing. Soon afterward, several dry cleaners are bombed, and Morgan uncovers that Molly’s father, an accountant, is connected to the Teamsters’ Jimmy Hoffa and corrupt Detroit automotive unions. Meanwhile, popular businessman Trolley Lander runs for mayor of Detroit, and Billy reports on the campaign when he’s not sniffing out clues to Molly’s murder; he soon falls in love with Trolley’s assistant, Cindy, and eventually discovers that Cindy once had an affair with her boss. Martz does an excellent job at portraying a world when print was king of the news. His descriptions of the bustling late-night newsroom crew, struggling to make their deadlines, are a stark contrast to what readers may associate with today’s 24-hour nonstop social-media-driven news cycle. Readers may find the novel’s conclusion somewhat predictable, but the winding path the story takes to get there is not. The story has few female characters, and they’re more hastily sketched than the men; Cindy is the novel’s least compelling figure, despite being the hero’s love interest. However, because the story is set during a much different time, and from Morgan’s limited point of view, readers will likely forgive this slight.
A compelling mystery set in an industry that has radically changed over the past 50 years.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477285558
Page Count: 232
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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