Indelible characters and a worthwhile denouement elevate this standard crime thriller.
A psychic consultant helps police track down a serial killer in an Arizona town in Scott’s (Cut-Throat Syndrome, 2017, etc.) mystery.
Bullhead City is a small community that doesn’t see much “big-city crime.” So a series of vicious murders is a shock to everyone, including lead investigator Lt. Dan Kropp. There are four victims within five months, all white males with severed genitalia. After making little progress in the case, Kropp seeks assistance from Jena Halpern in Cave Creek, Arizona. A psychic consultant for more than two decades, Jena begins by visiting each crime scene. She and Dan develop a capricious working relationship; sometimes they’re in sync, and other times they engage in heated arguments. But they seemingly make headway with a potential link between the victims, as more than one frequented the Hogtie Saloon, a gay bar. Unfortunately, if they can’t reassure Dan’s captain they have a substantial lead, there’s a good chance Capt. Sam Ferguson will stop investigating actively. Dan and Jena are at odds once again when she disagrees with the person he ultimately names as a suspect. But they share the same goal: to ensure that a serial killer’s spree does not continue in Bullhead City or anywhere else. Scott’s murder mystery, which launches a Jena-centric series, is proficient as a procedural. Scenes at the murder sites, for example, are detailed and furthermore showcase the author’s illustrative prose. Even Jena’s psychic readings sharply define the environment: “The air is thick with dust particles suspended in rays of muted sunlight angling through the floral drapes.” Moreover, Scott retains a sublimely simple narrative by focusing primarily on two well-drawn protagonists. Dan, for one, has trouble from the start, as dead bodies render him physically ill. On the mystery front, the investigating duo examine crime scenes and victims’ lives with little to show for it. This does, however, pay off in an unpredictable ending that finally reveals what Jena is truly capable of.
Indelible characters and a worthwhile denouement elevate this standard crime thriller.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9993551-5-2
Page Count: 242
Publisher: MAS-9375
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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