Another outing bolstered by the endlessly appealing amateur gumshoe and her furry Watson.
In this fifth installment of a series, a professional organizer once again becomes embroiled in crime-solving when a family claims her teenage sons are responsible for a man’s death.
Maggie McDonald and her boys, David, 16, and Brian, 14, are ready for a summer at a Monterey Bay beach resort in California. Of course, Maggie is there to work, helping Renée Alvarez, the new manager of the condo complex where they’re staying. On the first day, David and Brian come to the aid of Jake Peterson, who’s injured after crashing his ultralight. They call 911; EMTs rush Jake to a hospital; and the teens become local heroes. But Jake doesn’t survive, and his parents respond with a lawsuit against David and Brian, claiming their untrained attempt to rescue the pilot ultimately caused his death. Consequently, Maggie looks into the ultralight accident, which is already suspicious, as Jake, an experienced pilot, regularly checked his aircraft. She gets assistance from her sons and husband, Max (when not working at his engineering job back home), along with a few friends. Not only could someone have sabotaged Jake’s propeller or fired a gunshot at him during flight, but criminal activity in the area suggests motives for his murder as well. And Maggie knows she’s on the right track when someone threatens her via text message. As in preceding volumes, Feliz’s (Disorderly Conduct, 2018, etc.) novel is light on mystery. Nevertheless, in this case, Maggie isn’t necessarily solving a murder; she’s trying to prove her sons’ innocence. This entails drumming up suspects in potentially unrelated crimes for any links to Jake. But what the story lacks in mystery, it more than makes up for in winsomeness. Maggie, for example, has an infectious, positive attitude and stays cool-headed when others are agitated. Her ever-present golden retriever, Belle, is a delightful sidekick. Descriptions of the canine often reflect the narrative’s low-key humor: Maggie seems to find solace in Belle “conked out for the night” near David and Brian, as the boys “were in good paws.”
Another outing bolstered by the endlessly appealing amateur gumshoe and her furry Watson.Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5161-0530-4
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Lyrical Underground
Review Posted Online: June 21, 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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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