An offbeat, entertaining look at timeworn mythical characters.
A world of imaginary beings faces a possible homicide in Betts’ (The Shadow Beneath the Waves, 2018, etc.) fantasy mystery.
Abe is a working stiff whose job is to be an Imaginary Friend to a child for as long as he or she needs him. But it’s clear by Abe’s fourth assignment that he’s lost interest in the work; he’s no longer concerned with appeasing his current “selfish little brat,” as he puts it. He returns to the Hill, a place for the Imaginaries, which also include Gods, Boogeymen, and Aliens. It’s separate from the Otherworld, where humans reside. The Council, comprised of Father Time, Mother Nature, and Death, decides that Abe is due for another gig, so they make him the Hill’s first investigator. Abe is surely qualified, as he was once an Imaginary Friend to a kid named Truman, who’s now an adult policeman. It seems that an Imaginary named Ira has died, which hasn’t ever happened before on the Hill. Abe looks into Ira’s unexplained demise with help from his pals Brady (a Bigfoot) and Zane (a Boogeyman). The investigation eventually leads Abe to shocking revelations, including a few choice items about himself. Betts immediately roots his fantastical characters in the day-to-day routine of the Hill; for example, it’s explained that the Council first began rotating jobs primarily so the Gods would have something to do. Readers hoping for a substantial murder mystery, though, may be disappointed, as the story quickly shifts to Abe’s investigation of the Hill’s past and present. However, this is an engrossing storyline on its own. The moments of humor are well-earned, and Brady and Zane are standouts: Their interview method is simply to ask people if they killed the victim. The ending manages to be both fascinating and endearing.
An offbeat, entertaining look at timeworn mythical characters.Pub Date: June 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-947879-04-1
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Dog Star Books
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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