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
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
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