Set aside a block of time to read the 12th in Lister’s series (Blood Oath, 2016, etc.), for it may be impossible to put...
A Florida prison chaplain with investigative experience reopens an ice-cold case that will change his life forever.
John Jordan’s troubles start with a phone request to rescue his drunken brother, Jake, from a bar. Jake used to be a deputy for his father, Jack Jordan, sheriff of Potter County. When Jack lost his re-election bid, both father and son were thrown out of work and feeling lost. But Jack has kept himself busy looking at cold cases, most recently the matter of beautiful, popular high school senior Janet Leigh Lester, whose car was found soaked in blood but whose body was never found. John’s relations with his whole family, especially his father, have been difficult, but when he learns that Jack has cancer, he agrees to help him review the case, which scarred many lives. Jack suspected but could never prove that Janet was a victim of Ted Bundy, who was rampaging through northern Florida at the time and was even spotted at a gas station where Janet stopped the night of her disappearance. Many thought her boyfriend, Ben Tillman, was the real killer, protected because his father, the sheriff of Jackson County, called on his friend Jack to take over the case. Nobody has a bad thing to say about Janet. Her friends loved her; her stepfather, Ronnie Lester, thought she was an angel; she helped Verna, her frail mother, care for Ralphie, her mentally and physically disabled brother; and she was active in school, church, and the 4-H club. Her death left behind a group of people torn by suspicion and guilt. Despite the difficulties involved in solving a 40-year-old case, John is determined to help his father, unaware of how high the price will be.
Set aside a block of time to read the 12th in Lister’s series (Blood Oath, 2016, etc.), for it may be impossible to put down. Conflicted characters and a shocking solution add up to an enthralling experience.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-888146-70-7
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Pulpwood Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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
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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