In Dalrymple’s debut thriller, a woman capable of sensing spirits might be unknowingly putting herself in danger when she gets close to exposing a murderer.
Ann Kinnear can’t converse with ghosts, but her ability to sense a lingering spirit, or “essence,” is enough for her to work as a consultant for police in a missing person case. But it’s a job for client Mavis Van Dyke that catches a killer’s attention. Mavis, who wants to live in a haunted house, hires Ann to walk through prospective homes. Ann is so disturbed by an angry spirit at a Philadelphia house that she won’t even go inside. When Detective Joe Booth hears of this, he asks Ann to return to the residence, hoping to validate his belief that the seller, Biden Firth, murdered his wife, Elizabeth. Biden learns about Ann, too, and he starts obsessively keeping an eye on her and her brother/business partner, Mike, to ensure that Ann doesn’t help the detective solve his case. Dalrymple’s novel features a protagonist who’s amiably reclusive—she’s none too happy that a History Channel special gets her recognized in public—but also relatable, especially considering her endearing relationship with Mike, who, even as a child, fully believed in her spirit sensing. Ann’s special talent is distinctive and remarkable; though people usually call her a psychic, she can’t directly communicate with spirits (a fact that is repeated a few too many times) and instead senses them via glowing lights, sounds or smells, e.g., the scent of a dead man’s pipe tobacco. Though Ann sees herself as a “freak,” she isn’t portrayed as such. The story touches on her affinity for Garrick, who relates to Ann by sharing a similar ability. While Mike and Ann’s separation from the ongoing murder case helps build suspense (Biden has the advantage since they don’t know what he looks like), the investigation gets a dramatic punch from Joe’s visits with Elizabeth’s grieving mother, Amelia, as well as updates on Biden’s daughter, 2-year-old Sophia, whom the father often neglects. The book closes with adequate resolution and is bolstered by an intense scene with at least one life in peril.
A frighteningly meticulous villain and a formidable protagonist will have readers breezing through the pages.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615919775
Page Count: 324
Publisher: William Kingsfield Publishers
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
