A smart caper with a heroine to match.
When her new job at a movie studio turns deadly, the daughter of a renowned private investigator is her company’s only hope—and the highlight of this debut mystery.
Years ago, Corrie Locke and her father cracked a murder case that could have put an NBA superstar in prison. Now she’s relieved to take on a comparatively tame position as an entertainment lawyer in sunny Newport Beach, California, where she’ll be far away from danger—or so she thinks. When Druby Valdez, the company’s former head of security, is found dead at the bottom of a lake, his co-workers suspect foul play. But Corrie is reluctant to tackle the case on her own. Her “gene for caution is a recessive one, but it’s still there,” and conducting a murder investigation is not an easy thing to do while navigating office politics. Corrie’s misadventures with her co-workers are as fun to read about as her amateur sleuthing. Inside the Complex—“a place filled with intrigue, deception, secrets, and beautiful people”—Corrie has more egos to manage than contracts to write. She deftly turns her business meetings into excuses to dig for clues, risking certain termination (as well as unwanted attention from lecherous executives) if she focuses on the wrong person. Meanwhile, Sideris also reveals, through Corrie’s other cases (a missing cat and a possible alien abduction), how Corrie’s past may have led her to her present. The author paints Corrie’s co-workers as being as devious as cartoon villains, so the list of suspects quickly becomes unwieldy. However, she also adds gentle humor and a touch of romance. Outside of work, for example, Corrie’s childhood friend Michael is sincere when others are superficial. He becomes her likable partner in fighting crime—and possibly more. Another memorable ally is Veera, a security guard and a first-year law student, who comes to work as her assistant, fending off Corrie’s enemies with creative threats like, “I’m going to dislocate all of your limbs. Then I’m gonna pour Kool-Aid all over your sorry ass and plant it in an ant’s nest.”
A smart caper with a heroine to match.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5092-0240-9
Page Count: 408
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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