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THE JUDAS GLASS

The author of The Horses of the Night (1993), among seven others, continues his rise with a modern vampire romance that harks back to the metaphysical poets' device not only of trading eyes but bodies as well. Cadnum's story at first seems simplistic, satirical, and thoroughly unserious. But midway the prose jells to a philosophical lyricism rarely found in this genre. San Francisco lawyer Richard Stirling, who's sure his cool, infertile wife Connie plays around, has himself taken a lover, the blind classical pianist Rebecca Pennant. When Rebecca is murdered in her bathroom and her house burned down, Connie's all sympathy. Then, to Richard's surprise, a strange mirror is delivered to his door: an antique with white wood frame and a carved unicorn. When Richard nicks his finger on the back edge of the mirror, it won't stop bleeding, even when treated by the family physician, Dr. Opal. Later, quite faint, Richard falls through a restaurant's glass door—and wakes up nine months later buried and in a sealed coffin, an exquisitely rendered Poe- esque turn. Once he claws his way from the grave and staggers to Dr. Opal's house, the surprised doctor rids his amazing patient of embalming fluid and replaces it with blood. Soon enough, Richard finds he must have human blood and sets about bloodsucking. His real mission: to find and destroy Rebecca's murderer. Eventually, he digs Rebecca up and feeds her his own blood, restoring her corpse to life, after which the love story takes over: The two hide in a stolen yacht at sea (wonderful storms) and in a redwood forest, feeding on deer (Rebecca detests murder, though hunger for human blood overcomes her). When the lovers are burned to bone, the story lifts heavenward into their post-life together: ``People are all that holds the sky in place . . . This is what the stars can never equal, this glittering minutia, the subtle accidents of lives.'' Chopin's Fantasie-impromptu for vampires.

Pub Date: March 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-7867-0239-7

Page Count: 320

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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