The untidy Rube Goldberg aftermath to the shooting of ghetto beauty Lawanda de Bourbon by rookie cop James Rodriguez, traced in satiric detail by first-novelist Goldstone. Did Rodriguez gun down Lawanda in cold blood as she fled across a rooftop in a drug raid, or did he fire in self-defense after seeing a gun in the hand of the mistress of drug kingpin Ali Akbar Abdul (Triple A)? Despite the clean-cut cop's fervent avowals, no gun can be found in the courtyard where Lawanda fell; and opportunistic lawyer Herbert Whiffet, fresh from his triumph in protecting homeless vagrant Fruitful Willis from harassing/harassed deli owner Murray Platkin and armed with a videotape of the shooting by out-to-lunch main-chancer Fernando Rios, rallies the black community in demanding revenge. As Herbert tries to dodge the newly acquired investigative skills of TV newscaster Cornelia Pembroke and puts aside his rewarding liaison with informative assistant D.A. Renee Libermann-Smith (roused to revenge herself when she thinks he's been two-timing him with impossibly glamorous Cornelia, nÇe Karen Pzytriek) for a place on jailed Triple A`s legal staff, Murray's cashier Clarissa Taylor, thrown out of work when he closed his deli, finds her slide down the socioeconomic scale arrested temporarily by her son's employment by Ralph ``Uzi'' Jones, one of Triple A's top aides. Meanwhile, Internal Affairs investigator Phil Gagliardi and big-time defense attorney Meville Seltzer battle over the question of how (in the absence of hard evidence about the vanished gun) to slant the case so that Rodriguez will get off, or the department will come out looking good, or the cops can cut a deal to reduce Triple A's slaughter of innocents in the cross fire—all of this supplemented by a mercifully brief homily on whose rights are to be protected at the expense of whose. An amusingly overplotted Bonfire of the Vanities knockoff, minus Wolfe's epic sense of despair or fun.
Pub Date: March 1, 1992
ISBN: 1-877946-13-3
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1992
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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