An artist is drawn back into his family's rather sordid business and into the orbit of an odious Trump-style real-estate developer in Chicago. Kilian's most recent imperiled WASP thriller was The Last Virginia Gentleman (1992). The Curlands of Chicago have pretty much hit the skids. Matthias Curland—one-time architect, crafty yachtsman, and hero of this well-mannered novel of midwestern manners and murder—has gone nowhere as an artist in Europe. His brother, Christian, paints and cossets Chicago society ladies and accepts gifts from them. Their father, who ran the family architectural firm into the ground, is slipping into dementia, and their unpleasant mother has just slipped off to the big jewelry department in the sky. Only the dog-rearing suburban sister has done at all well. Back in Illinois for mum's funeral, Matthias picks up with an old flame just before meeting and becoming intrigued with Diandra Poe, wife of Chicago's most flamboyant zillionaire. Peter Poe, a world-class rat with an exceptionally vicious secretary, appears to be giving Mrs. Poe the high sign to hop into bed with Matthias. What could the condoned cuckoldry have to do with hubby's plans to build the tallest building in the universe, his selection of Matthias as house architect, conversion of the lakefront airport, the Curland family museum, or the bullet holes in the stolen artwork found on the body of Matthias's old girlfriend on the derelict yacht that floated into the bailiwick of a Michigan police chief with roots in Chicago? Matthias and the cop sort it all out together. There are no cliffs from which to hang in the Midwest, but there is that lovely big lake, so there's a modestly tense yacht race. Most of the characters are repellent, but if Kilian ever slides over to mysteries, Chief Zany Rawlings would do nicely in a recurring role.
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09925-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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