It’s an equally good bet, then, that nobody will chortle or even simper at every entry and that there really is something...
Given the modest cover price for this cornucopia of 42 tales reprinting material from H.R.F. Keating to Michael Z. Lewin, from Sarah Caudwell to Carol Anne Davis—and including ten new stories by Marc Blake, Mike Phillips, Julian Rathbone, Keith Miles, Peter T. Garratt, Rebecca Tope, Catherine Aird, David Stuart Davies, Amy Myers, and David Wishart—it’s probably ungracious to quibble. But an awful lot of these gems of comic crime aren’t particularly funny. Mark Twain’s two chestnuts are quaintly dated, Nicholas Blincoe’s saga of his mother the bank robber whimsical, Bill Pronzini’s Nameless as Santa Claus charming, Philip Gooden’s Mideastern fable exotic and foreboding, Caudwell’s reworking of Wilkie Collins arch, but none of them is likely to evince more than a dutiful smile. Throwing so many darts at a target, however, guarantees a certain number of bull’s-eyes, and veteran editor Jakubowski, not usually noted for either his terrific sense of humor or his sharp attention to the borders that define genres (The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action, 2001, etc.), has not only rounded up the usual funny suspects—Donald E. Westlake, Simon Brett, Lawrence Block, and a nifty pair of Mat Cowards—but unearthed some unexpected treasures, from the nonstop take-that twists of Peter Lovesey’s epistolary romp to Christopher Brookmyre’s memorably incompetent post-office robbers to the straight-faced absurdity of Alex Atkinson’s “Chapter the Last.”
It’s an equally good bet, then, that nobody will chortle or even simper at every entry and that there really is something for everyone.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7867-1002-0
Page Count: 592
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
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
Part of Hoffman's great talent is her wonderful ability to sift some magic into unlikely places, such as a latter-day Levittown (Seventh Heaven, 1990) or a community of divorcÇes in Florida (Turtle Moon, 1992). But in her 11th novel, a tale of love and life in New England, it feels as if the lid flew off the jar of magic—it blinds you with fairy dust. Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned sisters, only 13 months apart, but such opposites in appearance and temperament that they're dubbed ``Day and Night'' by the two old aunts who are raising them. Sally is steady, Gillian is jittery, and each is wary, in her own way, about the frightening pull of love. They've seen the evidence for themselves in the besotted behavior of the women who call on the two aunts for charms and potions to help them with their love lives. The aunts grow herbs, make mysterious brews, and have a houseful of—what else?—black cats. The two girls grow up to flee (in opposite directions) from the aunts, the house, and the Massachusetts town where they've long been shunned by their superstitious schoolmates. What they can't escape is magic, which follows them, sometimes in a particularly malevolent form. And, ultimately, no matter how hard they dodge it, they have to recognize that love always catches up with you. As always, Hoffman's writing has plenty of power. Her best sentences are like incantations—they won't let you get away. But it's just too hard to believe the magic here, maybe because it's not so much practical magic as it is predictable magic, with its crones and bubbling cauldrons and hearts of animals pierced with pins. Sally and Gillian are appealing characters, but, finally, their story seems as murky as one of the aunts' potions—and just as hard to swallow. Too much hocus-pocus, not enough focus. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection)
Pub Date: June 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14055-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
BOOK TO SCREEN
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