Feliz again delivers a well-written, immensely likable story that can stand alone, although readers will want to read...
In this Bay Area cozy, a body in the freezer and a friend in jail throw a professional organizer’s life into disarray.
In Feliz’s (Scheduled to Death, 2017, etc.) latest Maggie McDonald mystery, Maggie again must clean up a murder mess, this time before she assists friends Stephen Laird and Jason Mueller in organizing and storing the couple’s stuff prior to a home remodel. Police detective Jason is out of state with a rapid-response team of officers the morning Maggie and Stephen are to meet at the home to strategize a packing plan. But when Maggie arrives, the always-punctual retired Marine isn’t there, and his beloved mastiff, Munchkin (who’s Maggie’s golden retriever’s BFF), eventually limps home solo, bloodied but able to recover. Maggie learns Stephen is in jail, charged with the murder of Mr. Xiang, whose body was discovered in the freezer of his restaurant. Cops found Stephen at the scene, wiping down tables. In Jason’s absence, Stephen will only talk to Maggie. She realizes he’s protecting Xiang’s employee, Rafi Maldonado, an undocumented teenager who was home-birthed in the U.S. The night of the murder, Stephen and Munchkin intervened when assailants were beating Rafi, only to be pounded themselves by the thugs who’d killed Xiang. Because he didn’t want Rafi connected to the murder, Stephen gave him his car keys and erased the teen’s fingerprints from the scene. Now, instead of systemizing toss/donate/keep piles, Maggie must prove Stephen is innocent and Rafi is legal. Perhaps one of the homeless people Xiang and Rafi regularly fed behind the restaurant witnessed the beatings? After previously solving murders in the series, recent transplants Maggie and her family are now mainstays in the upscale community filled with diverse, colorful characters. But now, with concern and compassion, Feliz has Maggie delve into the problems of homeless, poor, and immigrant populations. Yet in spite of societal concerns and murder, the tone of this well-written book is hopeful, occasionally playful. Feliz writes confidently, having done her homework on such things as immigration legal issues and even how to breeze through jailhouse metal detectors (carry your passport, keys; don’t wear jewelry, zippers, or an underwire bra).
Feliz again delivers a well-written, immensely likable story that can stand alone, although readers will want to read previous books in the series.Pub Date: July 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-60183-668-7
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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