Good nasty fun in the form of a plausible (if not altogether credible) plot offering object lessons on the wages of sin,...
Another elegant entertainment from Thomas (Hanover Place, 1990, etc.), a former Lehman Brothers partner with a firm grasp of high finance and the low cunning that frequently informs it.
Lee Boynton is a brainy, zaftig, 30ish heiress, copublisher and sole angel of Washington-based Capitol Steps, a muckraking review with a small but influential readership. When she gets a tip on some odd megabuck cash flows through a troubled bank in Northern California, she recruits Thurlow Coole, an austere Bostonian with a Wall Street background, to help her pursue the story. The unlikely pair quickly realize they're on the twisty trail of a criminal enterprise established mainly to legitimize Colombian drug lords' money, flight capital from underdeveloped countries, terrorists' slush funds, and the illicit profits of putatively respectable corporations. At the heart of the vast conspiracy is Credit Provencal, a BCCI-like institution effectively controlled by Mona Kurchinsky, a whip-smart operator who was a valued protégé of Lee's legendary uncle in the CIA. Mona's minions include a White House insider and a murderous Korean-American who has tapped into JEDI (Joint Expedited Date Interface), the US government's ultrasecure clearinghouse system for its law-enforcement agencies. As the transnational laundry's dirty linen comes spilling out in the wash of Lee's globe-trotting inquiries and Coole's shrewd analyses of what's been going down in the presumptive privacy of computer networks, the villains of the piece begin covering their tracks the old-fashioned way—by killing off those who know too much. At the close, Lee has written a bestseller about how CP was brought to book and looks forward to deepening her lusty relationship with an unexpectedly studly Coole.
Good nasty fun in the form of a plausible (if not altogether credible) plot offering object lessons on the wages of sin, laced with liberal measures of the author's trademark commentary on tempora et mores.Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-517-59523-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994
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
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
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