A brisk and entertaining read; less a mystery than an affecting character study and rumination on letting go of the past.
An investigation into two murders in California leads to a house on the titular street, where both victims once lived, in this novella.
The year is 1991. On a San Francisco street, Ian Christian Hamilton is cut down by two bullets. Two days later, in Sonoma, popular musician Edward Hayes is found brutally murdered in his home recording studio. Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff Ben Hyatt comes across a journal that indicates that Hayes and Hamilton were roommates 22 years earlier. He contacts San Francisco Detective Joe D’Alessandro, who is weeks away from mandatory retirement. “Maybe you and I are looking for the same somebody,” Hyatt clues him in. As they track down leads, events unfold through Hayes’ journal entries, which include love letters and magazine clippings, and time shifts that reveal the who and why. One acquaintance refers to the victims as “harmless oddballs.” They are anything but. Hamilton was a wealthy sociopath (notes his ex-wife: “I once asked him where he got the idea he could do whatever he wanted. He said, ‘Where do you get the idea I can’t’ ”). Hayes, disowned by his own wealthy father after being outed as gay, was a prodigious musical talent and seemed poised for stardom after teaming with David Copeland, another Grove Street roommate and a gifted songwriter. (Rolling Stone magazine compares Copeland to James Taylor.) Copeland, much to Hayes’ distress, is focused on teaching and his girlfriend, Kate Anderson. In his enjoyable tale, Mayfield (In the Driver’s Seat, 2011) has an engaging, crisp, spare style when it comes to dialogue that drives the story forward, as in this introductory exchange between “crusty old-timer” D’Alessandro and Hyatt: “You married?” “Not anymore.” “Veteran?” “Army. Vietnam. Infantry.” “Army. Korea. Infantry.” This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and if they are teamed up again, one hopes they are given more to do. Readers—privy to information they don’t have—will be mostly one step ahead of them.
A brisk and entertaining read; less a mystery than an affecting character study and rumination on letting go of the past.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5449-8467-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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