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FIRST CUT

Name: FIRST CUT
Author: Leah Ruth Robinson
ISBN: 0-380-79458-4

by Leah Ruth Robinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1997

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Forced and furiously complicated second in a series of medical procedurals starring brainy, sexy, ``adrenaline junky'' Manhattan emergency-room physician Evelyn Sutcliffe. Starting with the same premise as in her debut novel, Blood Run (1988), Robinson has Dr. Sutcliffe fail to save a female victim of apparent male aggression. Theresa Kahr, a young German national who works in a boutique and volunteers at a neighborhood abortion clinic, is wheeled into the University Hospital ER having been bludgeoned almost to death with a pipe. Worse yet, her attacker crudely violated her with a toy doll, identifying her as one more victim of the serial killer dubbed by newspapers as Babydoll. A hectic parade follows, involving emergency-room details, capsule portraits of personnel, cops, Dr. Sutcliffe's previous and possible lovers, and Lisa Chiu, a sympathetically rendered polyracial feminist lesbian ER tech who looks upon the thirtysomething Sutcliffe as a mentor. It's no surprise, then, that Chiu is Babydoll's next victim. Sutcliffe suspects that the murders have something to do with a series of fanatical attacks on abortion- clinic staffers. Frustrated by the slow pace of the police investigation (``You've been watching too much `Murder, She Wrote,' '' an NYPD detective chides her), Sutcliffe pokes into Chiu's background, discovering that she had information about a Medicaid scam involving Sutcliffe's ER. This sets off a series of squeamish speculations as Sutcliffe wonders about the dirty secrets her colleagues might be hiding. More corpses arrive and, as if on cue, Babydoll starts stalking Sutcliffe, forcing her into the arms of lovers, confidantes, and mentors whom (almost too late) she learns that she shouldn't have trusted. Arising from a pile of red herrings, Babydoll finally dukes it out with Sutcliffe, who- -refreshingly—is horrified at the de rigueur violence such climaxes demand. Competent medical lore and compassionately detailed minor players are dampened by soap operatics and a trite, formulaic plot. (First printing of 125,000; $200,000 ad/promo)

Pub Date: April 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-380-79458-4

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.