When he hears that his father's been shot, Tom Heller, Jr.a true-crime writer like his author (Life for Death, Money to Burn) flies back to America determined to track down Big Tom's killer, only to step into a hornet's nest when he's called into the investigation of another murder he's all too sure is tied to his father's. The latest victimsAndrew Yost and Clay Farinholtare father and son to Elaine Farinholt, whom poor-boy Tom romanced one impossible summer 20 years ago before drop-dead-rich Andrew found out she was pregnant and packed her off to an adoption agency in Texas, where she swore to Tom, when he chased her down, that the baby wasn't his. Now that she's been getting anonymous letters about that baby, she's convinced that he's grown up and killed her family in revengeand Tom's convinced that the mysterious blond man Elaine saw fleeing the murder scene is the same blond man a neighbor saw running from Big Tom's murder. The old lovers strike a brilliantly twisted deal: Tom will sign an affidavit that Elaine was pregnant that summer (all the adoption records having disappeared, the police have naturally zeroed in on her as the #1 suspect) in return for her cooperation in writing a book about the murders (scheming all the time to tie the killings to his father's murder). Meantime, as Clay's pregnant girlfriend Doreen Perry, aided by her strong, stupid brother Darryl and swinish lawyer Curtis Koontz, is pressing a claim on behalf of her unborn child for Andrew's estate, hoping to sweeten the pot by nudging Elaine toward the chair, Tomlying blithely to Elaine, the police, even his trusted brother Buckbegins to wonder who's double-crossing whom. Was there really a baby after all? Was it Tom's? Did Elaine kill Big Tom, and is she trying to seduce Tom to set him up for all three killings? The surprises go off like a giant string of firecrackers, with only the last one a dud. Pulp fiction at its overplotted best.
Pub Date: June 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-671-73204-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
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
BOOK REVIEW
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