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BLIND EYE

An engrossing crime tale that would make a lean and mean movie.

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In this debut novel, the events leading up to the brutal murders of a ranch foreman and his wife unfold through a variety of viewpoints.

“Something bad” has happened on the ranch of Sam Duff, “the big name T.V. broadcaster and part time rancher.” The bodies of foreman Luke Pruitt and his third wife, Deona, have been found in a manure pit while their two children, Leeland, 14, and his preteen sister, Karmen, are missing. Chapters of Burns’ compelling book alternate between Deputy Rob Greenwood’s investigation and the perspectives of the principals and participants involved in the case. These include the ill-fated Luke, who, like his father, Payton, was “meaner-than-shit” and made Benedict Cumberbatch in the film The Power of the Dog look like Roy Rogers. Linda Pruitt, his mother, was “a genuine ranch woman,” whose Ranching Weekly column contained such homespun (and posthumously ironic) wisdom as “Cowboys expect a lot of their families because they expect a lot of themselves,” and who met an unfortunate end. Most heartbreakingly, there is Luke’s abused son, Leeland, who admits to his school counselor that he does not want to be a cowboy. But haunting the narrative is the communal “We,” one voice that guiltily confesses, “We’d seen it coming, and stood by watching it the way we’d watch a dry storm approach across flat land—always thinking we had more time.” This bruising story is less a murder mystery than an unflinching look at a culture and community. Burns writes with a vivid sense of place and ranch life. Dialogue is effectively terse. “I wouldn’t treat my livestock” the way “Luke and Deona Pruitt treated that boy,” one character remarks. Evocative descriptions add rich grace notes (“Only a clarinet could have mimicked the sadness of that boy’s voice”). There are a few positive adult characters who offer compassion and a helping hand, but there is little respite for readers, which may make it hard going for some. As Luke growls at one point, “This is no tea party.”

An engrossing crime tale that would make a lean and mean movie.

Pub Date: May 20, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-63988-366-0

Page Count: 306

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2022

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.

Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Pub Date: July 30, 2024

ISBN: 9781250899576

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024

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