Lame dialogue and horrible, ill-placed jokes hamstring this limp second installment in a trilogy of westerns set in the late 1800s starring Del Tackett, a self-described ``wanderin' cowpoke.'' Wanderin' along on a trail of dusty western fiction clichÇs, Tackett meanders into a Texas town where, as luck would have it, he finds a youngish spinster schoolmarm, named Elizabeth ``Liddy'' Doyle, whose dad's name is, get this, Bob Doyle. Ugh. Now, if these two names look suspiciously like those of a well-known and highly placed Republican couple, that may be because Nofziger (Tackett, not reviewed; Nofziger, 1992) was once a highly placed Republican political consultant. Or, maybe he just likes littering his work with such cheesy pun names as Chase Mann Hattan, a small-town banker, or Herbert Bushwalker, an eastern-bred Texan who appears only to explain Tackett's use of the phrase ``deep doo-doo.'' Anyway, Tackett is helping Liddy fend off the avaricious and amorous advances of one Crispen Guicy, a slick villain with designs on Liddy's inherited fortune. In order to claim said fortune Liddy must hop a stage to Denver, where she is to pick up her share of the loot. Hazards lurk at every bend, but Tackett is there to fend them off, offering one rationalization after another for his consistently violent responses to real and perceived threats. Perhaps he is making up for his illiteracy, which Liddy tries to correct at various times during the tale. Or, maybe, he has trouble reconciling his god-fearin' and gun-slingin' sides. Whatever the reason, you would be angry, too, if your name appeared on the cover of a book this silly.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-89526-488-9
Page Count: 186
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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