More than a straight-up police procedural, this tale gives readers the excitement of the chase while taking them deep into...
The adventures of Detective Jack Bailey continue as he and his partner run down clues in pursuit of a serial killer on the loose in Chicago in this sequel.
As in the first installment of the Bailey series, the past is always looming in this tale. The police detective’s PTSD both colors his interpretation of events and is affected by them. The trail begins when Sister Anne Celeste, a beloved elderly nun, is found strangled in her room with no sign of forced entry or struggle. Bailey and his young, college-educated partner, Karl “Sherk” Sherkenbach, complement each other, focusing on different clues and approaching witnesses in their own ways. But all the while, they are tossing jokes over each other’s heads, with Sherk favoring literary references and Bailey, old cultural allusions (“We’re about at Abbott’s place. Wonder if Costello’s there”). Since the nun served during the tenure of a priest accused of child molestation, they wonder if there is a connection. Their suspicions are confirmed when the second and third victims are suspected pedophiles. But the plot does not run in a straight line. There are many twists, some quite significant, as well as numerous subplots dealing with Bailey’s and Sherk’s personal lives, their ambivalence about hunting someone ridding the world of pedophiles, their attitudes toward the job, and even their finances. In many ways, Bailey is your typical fictional police detective. He lives alone; remains cynical and irritable; thrives on junk food; drinks too much; and answers to the requisite pain-in-the-neck boss. But Lelvis (Bailey’s Law, 2016) skillfully fleshes out what could have been a mere stereotype into a vibrant, living, breathing human being. She does this subtly with all her characters, assembling them brick by brick while simultaneously building plot tension through hints and innuendoes that are slowly revealed naturally as the story unfolds. Even the killer is no one-dimensional bogeyman but an empathetic individual developed through chapters devoted to him.
More than a straight-up police procedural, this tale gives readers the excitement of the chase while taking them deep into the psyches of its diverse characters.Pub Date: April 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68433-009-6
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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