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IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

Name: IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES
Author: Lia Matera
ISBN: 0-06-019225-9

edited by Lia Matera ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1999

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It’s a rare crime story that doesn—t include irreconcilable differences of one sort or another, so the concept behind Matera’s collection of 20 new pieces won—t exactly set your heart to pounding. And a fair number of the starry entrants circling warily or genially around unhappy marriages (Bill Pronzini, Jan Burke, Julie Smith, Judith Kelman, Gillian Roberts, Margaret Maron) and other ill-fated unions (Amanda Cross, John Lutz, Marcia Muller, Pete Hautman, Eileen Dreyer) do little more than set up their victims before mowing them down. But if the editor’s broad rubric doesn—t inspire stories that go in any particular direction, it doesn—t rule anything out either, and the prizes here are the stories that find new alternatives to the whodunit and spouse-kills- spouse formulas—Laurie R. King’s sadly reminiscent ice-cream man, Sarah Lovett’s off-kilter showdown between a psychiatrist and a new-minted widow, Jeremiah Healy’s tale of an estranged husband whose ex-wife is afraid to press him for money, Joan Hess’s amiably underhanded deal to punish a successful murderer, editor Matera’s all-too-close brother and sister—or that ignore the customary implications of the phrase entirely and strike out on their own. Jeffery Deaver follows a twisting trail of small-town corruption; Edna Buchanan puts an unlikely hero through a night of pure Miami hell; Sarah Shankman’s heroine is dangerously maddened by a noisy neighbor; and, most powerfully of all, Joyce Carol Oates follows an aspiring teenaged predator through his school day as his anger twists inside him like a snake. The best stories here set you watching and wondering as their time-bomb killers tick down to zero. Now that’s irreconcilable.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-06-019225-9

Page Count: 384

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE
by Lia Matera

- BOOK REVIEW
HAVANA TWIST
by Lia Matera

- BOOK REVIEW
STAR WITNESS
by Lia Matera

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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

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
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.