A sluggishly paced and indifferently written whodunit from an acclaimed Japanese practitioner of the genre (A Kiss of Fire, 1988, etc.), whose sole (though scarcely unique) distinction is its employment of a young psychiatrist as detective. When Dr. Uemura sets out to investigate a murder to which one of his patients has confessed, he finds the alleged victim inconveniently alive. She is Mrs. Owada, the seductive and mysterious wife of an airline pilot, and she denies any knowledge of Akio Tanno, the deranged young man who insists he's murdered her. Captain Owada doesn't remain around long enough to confuse matters further, nor does Akio himself, but the embattled Dr. Uemura finds his attention distracted by the lissome flight attendant who was adulterously involved with the pilot, by Mrs. Owada's disturbing habit of removing her clothes and sunbathing whenever he visits her, and by other overwilling females variously connected to or involved with an impotent homosexual professor preying on male students lured to his home by his sensual young wife, who may also have shared a lesbian relationship with. No wonder, the,, that it takes Dr. Uemura so long to figure things out, considering the number of women who keep dragging him into bed to divert his attention. It's a great pity that Carol Burnett isn't still doing her weekly TV variety show; she'd have a fine time with this hysterically overplotted soaper. Togawa has been called ``the P.D. James of Japan.'' Well . . . maybe she's the Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-41862-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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
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
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