The dynamic protagonist leads a smart and indelible whodunit.
In Clifton’s (Seeking Cassandra, 2016, etc.) latest thriller, a detective steps outside his jurisdiction to help a mother prove an unidentified skull belongs to her decadeslong missing son.
Peony Folsom specifically requests Sam Chitto of the Choctaw Tribal Police in Oklahoma, since old mystic Sonny Boy Munro assured her that the detective can help. Sonny Boy calls him the Nameless One, a legendary hunter according to Choctaw teachings, and Peony wants Chitto to find her son, Walter, who’s been missing for over 35 years. Based on an artist’s rendering, Peony believes authorities found Walter’s skull in Leona Mann’s recently exhumed coffin, sans Leona’s head and the skull’s body. Retrieving Walter’s remains for a proper ceremony entails Chitto looking into a double homicide from the same night Walter vanished: Leona and her boyfriend, Billy Rob Niles. The detective’s perturbed by the sketchy investigation of the murders; there was no medical examiner involved, and a witness’s name was strangely omitted. But Chitto fears whoever murdered the couple—and maybe Walter as well—is still alive, and the hit-and-run that nearly killed Peony not long ago was a calculated response to the woman asking too many questions about the skull. Having well-established the protagonist’s Native American culture and back story (including his late wife, Mary) in the first Chitto novel, Clifton concentrates the series’ second tale on the mystery. There’s plenty to savor, from an unknown trainman who watched the cops move the couple’s bodies to Walter’s daughter, Crystal, aiding Chitto’s investigation and feeling sure that both her parents abandoned her. While readers may pinpoint the killer(s) before Chitto, the story ends with a lingering question open to interpretation (and one possible explanation that’s truly unsettling). Always-accommodating Sgt. Frank Tubbe makes a welcome return, but scene-stealing clerical floater Jasmine Birdsong proves useful in the probe as well as choosing a candidate for the position she’s temporarily filling. One can only hope she’ll stick around and become a series staple.
The dynamic protagonist leads a smart and indelible whodunit.Pub Date: March 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9985284-0-3
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Two Shadows
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
