If readers don’t mind prose that occasionally stumbles instead of soars, they’ll enjoy following Norman's hero as he figures...
Demoted Utah cop Sam Kincaid must put aside personal feelings when the daughter of the man who demoted him is kidnapped.
Kincaid had been chief of the Special Investigations Branch of the Utah Department of Corrections until he ran afoul of Ben Cates, who is now executive director of the department. Cates asks Kincaid for help because, with his daughter Samantha’s life at risk, he acknowledges that Kincaid is the best man to find her. Readers learn at the outset that the kidnapper is Jorge Lucero. Two deaths, one of a retired cop and another of a judge, were initially thought to be unrelated until Kincaid and his team learn that both men were involved in a case regarding Lucero’s son. When that trail also leads to Cates, the investigators are frantic to find Samantha before Lucero’s path of revenge takes even more lives. There are some genuine moments of tension as the team works against a narrowing deadline. But Norman’s pedestrian prose too often gets in the way of his storytelling, with winceworthy phrases like “until I drink my first cup of Joe” or “I quipped.” And what normal person (not a waitress) offers a guest in her house “coffee, tea, or an assortment of cold drinks”? Still, Norman is able to portray Kincaid as a decent man trying to juggle passion for his work, his devotion to his daughter during a custody fight with his ex-wife, and perhaps even a chance at romance.
If readers don’t mind prose that occasionally stumbles instead of soars, they’ll enjoy following Norman's hero as he figures out the next steps in his life.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-938436-40-6
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Aakenbaaken & Kent
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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