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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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