A sometimes-engaging horror tale, hampered by an undercooked plot.
A creepy aristocrat who recently arrived in town turns out to be a hungry vampire on the prowl in this debut horror yarn set in an unspecified Latin-American country.
A scary old estate called Isthamal hasn’t seen much activity in quite a long while. So when a silver-maned gentleman with mysterious Spanish roots suddenly takes up residence within its desolate walls, a watchful architect down the road named Rolando takes notice. It soon becomes clear that the new arrival is a vampire, or at the very least a very unsavory eccentric. Despite this, Rolando leaps at the chance to work with “The Count” on a promising new business venture. But soon, the architect’s wife, Sonia, starts having horrible nightmares about The Count, and a small band of impromptu vampire hunters, led by a student of the dark arts named Cosima, lops off her head, believing the beastly Count has transformed her into a vampire. D’Tejada is a talented writer with a facile prose style (“the artist had captured a look in which she could detect a mixture of cruelty and arrogance”). However, the characters in his underdeveloped universe curiously regard vampirism as an alien concept that requires the services of occult experts to understand. For example, horribly withered corpses, drained of blood and displaying telltale puncture marks on their necks, soon start popping up, which spurs local law enforcement into action—but these sheltered constables, as well as Cosima’s crew, seem oblivious to the obvious supernatural signs. Soon, the noose quickly begins to close around the distinctly coiffed Count’s neck when the cops call in the services of a police sketch artist. But will they catch The Count? An anticlimactic, ambiguous ending (“The End Or The Beginning Of A Tale Of The Vampire”) seems like an overeager, rather than ominous, declaration of things to come.
A sometimes-engaging horror tale, hampered by an undercooked plot.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482676204
Page Count: 156
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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