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 best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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