Written like a storyboard and riddled with coincidences.
A Neapolitan policeman goes to war in New York with the American branch of his hometown crime family, in the latest from the Law & Order writer/producer (Street Boys, 2002, etc.).
When Giancarlo LoManto was 15, his father died in the Bronx at the hands of the Camorra, the tougher-than-the-Mafia criminal outfit born under the Bourbons in 18th-century Naples. The late Sig. LoManto had failed to pay the vig and, well, you know how it is. Giancarlo’s mamma, understandably bitter, took her son back to the old country, where he grew up to be a spectacularly successful cop with a mission: to rid the world of the Camorra. He was actually doing pretty well, picking off drug dealers right and left, ducking most of the bullets that came his way, until, just as he was getting ready for a well-deserved, long-deferred holiday on Capri, his sister turns up with bad news. Her daughter Paula, Giancarlo’s high-school age niece, has gone missing, kidnapped from the New York family she was visiting. Giancarlo knows instantly that the kidnapping is a ploy instigated by Don Pietro Rossi, capo of the New York branch of the Camorra and son of the man who offed Giancarlo’s poor late father. Giancarlo has been much too successful in his one-man war on the Rossis, and the handsome young Don is seriously pissed. Flying immediately to New York, Giancarlo is teamed by a high-level cop friend, beautiful up-and-coming second-generation detective Jennifer Fabini, with whom he begins the hunt for Paula that will lead inevitably to a face-off with Pete Rossi. The adventure will bring memories of old grudges, scenes of old evils, much outwitting of lower-level thugs, and a sweet relationship with a savvy homeless Latino lad. There will also be Important Revelations about the shared past of the two antagonists.
Written like a storyboard and riddled with coincidences.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-41097-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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