The persistently entertaining lawyer leads a superb batch of characters and subplots.
A Washington, D.C., attorney packs his bags for Kansas City, where he takes on drug-dealing mobsters, in this thriller.
After years in Washington, Jeff Trask requests a transfer to the Kansas City U.S. Attorney’s office, where his lawyer friend Cameron Turner works. One of Trask’s first moves as senior litigation counsel is to indict 60 individuals on drug-related charges. But trouble is already brewing within the Kansas City Mafia. Readers know that “Little Dom” Silvestri and his goons the Gonzalez brothers have whacked John Porcello, convinced that he was a rat. Not only was that an unsanctioned hit, but the trio also killed John’s wife, Margie, who was the sister of the local don, Anthony Minelli. Complicating matters are Little Dom’s defiance of mob policy by pushing heroin and an unknown shooter later assassinating the Gonzalezes. Meanwhile, Trask, as expected, has made it to trial with only one of the 60 indictments. But the fallout of Little Dom’s actions ultimately generates evidence that the attorney may be able to use against the Mafia. And the blatant threat of someone firing two slugs into his house isn’t enough to dissuade the resolved Trask. The recurring protagonist has already tackled Herculean tasks, such as a political assassination and Islamic terrorists, in five crime dramas. So while mobsters are no more menacing than past villains, Rainer’s (Death Votes Last, 2017, etc.) change of scenery gives the character a breath of fresh air. Furthermore, the author, as in preceding novels, excels at fully developing a bevy of characters for this first installment of The Kansas City Files. The bad guys in this tale, including Little Dom’s mob-tied father, Big Dom, are just as enthralling as the virtuous players, particularly Trask’s wife, Lynn. The story thrives on the attorney’s legal fisticuffs, relayed via dialogue-laden scenes. Secondary plotlines nevertheless shine, from one of Trask and Lynn’s beloved dogs facing a serious medical condition to the protagonist identifying a potential drug courier during a flight.
The persistently entertaining lawyer leads a superb batch of characters and subplots.Pub Date: March 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64237-582-4
Page Count: 456
Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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