Love turns up in the most unexpected places in Shames's fifth idyll (Tropical Depression, 1996, etc.) concerning the mafia's Florida branch. Ten years ago, the cops back in New York squeezed Sal Martucci, and Sal, desperate to save his skin, ratted out his capo, Paulie Amaro. Relocated and resculpted by the Witness Protection Program, Sal, now self-christened Ziggy Maxx, eventually drifted down to Key West, where he forgot all about his passionate, and unconsummated, affair with Paulie's daughter Angelina. But Angelina hasn't forgotten him, and when she recognizes the image captured on her uncle Louie's vacation videotape, she goes AWOL from her father's house and, under the wing of her hopelessly romantic new friend Michael, checks into the Coral Shores, a gay-trade motel. Naturally, Uncle Louie, the white sheep of the family, who's never shown the slightest gumptionhis plumbing-supply business is strictly legitgets a funny feeling about where she's gone and takes off after her. So does her father, who's finished serving his sentence just in time to become convinced that somebody's kidnapped his daughter. In fact, anxious and confused Amaros keep heading south. What's going to happen on an island as little as Key West? An Amaro family reunion, that's what, complicated by (1) Michael's fling with the undercover cop assigned to keep an eye on Ziggy, (2) Paulie's involvement in a local mobster's plan to smuggle guns into Cuba, and (3) the sudden need of most of the cast to hide themselves in the friendly bosom of the Coral Shores. So Angelina's looking for Ziggy, Paulie's looking for Angelina, the feds are looking for Paulie, Michael's looking for love, and Uncle Louie's basically looking for a little peace and quiet, though that's not exactly what he's finding. Any questions so far? The most firmly plotted yet of Shames's ebullient Key West comedies, with a denouement guaranteed to satisfy everybody but the characters. ($100,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: March 13, 1997
ISBN: 0-7868-6203-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1996
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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