More anecdotal than novelistic, it’s too slight to rank with his best, but the Estleman hallmark has always been the quality...
Rowdy Roy Bean, lovely Lillie Langtry—a fine romance with no kisses.
In calling himself “the Law West of the Pecos,” Roy Bean may have overstated but not by much. It was an anarchic time, those last decades of the 19th century, a time when the law was endlessly malleable, pressed into disparate shapes by Colts, Winchesters and idiosyncratic judges. Bean, saloon keeper extraordinaire and oft-elected Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, was the very model of a Texas-style “hanging judge,” though probably not quite as lethal as legend purports. He did, however, own a huge, old, only partially domesticated bear named Bruno, employed from time to time—in one bizarre way or another—to implement his unorthodox approach to sentencing. Judge Bean was inordinately famous. Three thousand miles away, in England, so was Lillie Langtry. Born Emilie LeBreton on the pastoral British island of Jersey, she became with breathtaking speed the gorgeous “Jersey Lily,” toast of multiple towns on both sides of the Atlantic. She was an actress, and though never in a class with contemporaries Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt when talent was the measure, her looks compensated, made her for years “an attraction as dependable as the crown jewels.” Judge Bean was besotted with her, wrote passionately to her, papered the walls of his establishment with her photographs, named a town after her and longed for the day she would visit him there. Still, is it in fact a love story? Though they never met, Estleman makes a case.
More anecdotal than novelistic, it’s too slight to rank with his best, but the Estleman hallmark has always been the quality of the prose. After 60 or so books (Alone, 2009, etc.) that remains fresh, flavorful and worth the price.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2228-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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