Twenty-two stories, 16 of them new, by the members of the British Crime Writers' Association. Though none of the new stories are truly outstanding, most of them are well above average: Ian Rankin's brisk underworld killing; Sara Paretsky's fairy tale of therapy for a Go addict; Maxim Jakubowski's unsettling set of scenarios for homicide; Bill James's twisty anecdote about a pair of would-be rapists who just want to have fun; Val McDermid's transcript of interlinked graffiti; H.R.F. Keating's dry-eyed account of a criminal bogeyman; Keith Heller's fantasy of detection by Mrs. William Blake. Even the less successful tales by Stephen Murray, Mat Coward, Madelaine Duke, Susan Kelly, and coeditor Lewin mark offbeat new departures for their authors; and the more standard entries by William G. Tapply, John Malcolm, David Williams, and James Melville are still worth your time. Of the reprints, the most original is Robert Brack's ``Trumpets for Max Jericho,'' a portrait of an unemployed man's eventful day, and the biggest disappointment is one of the few Ruth Rendell stories, ``A Needle for the Devil,'' that can fairly be called routine. Donald E. Westlake contributes a typically botched bank robbery, Bob Lock a one-page jest, Joan Lock a pair of historical studies; and the collection is rounded out by the usual double-crostic and four particularly funny Clewsey cartoons. Not up to last year's vintage, but still as inventive and various a bundle as you'd expect from this consistently striking series.
Pub Date: Jan. 7, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-11736-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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