This Travelers tale delivers another exceptional slice of gamesmanship, slippery morals, and emotional fallout.
This fifth installment of a series sees married grifters attempt to tweak their con artistry with fresh talent.
In the town of Springville, the Traveling Man is going by the name John Ferguson. His wife, who usually helps him con criminals out of vast sums of money, is still using the alias Nicole Carter from their last caper. She hopes to retire in Cricket Bay, Florida, alongside James Denison, the grieving widower whom the Travelers recently helped. Replacing Nicole is 25-year-old Molly Wright, who has “more confidence than ability” in the grifting game. She and John plan to gain the trust of sleazy lawyer Neal Robertson and access his safe-deposit box at the Milton Bank—which may contain up to $100,000 in cash. Naturally, complications arise. Molly hasn’t mentioned her husband, Chad, who’d like to rip off John at the earliest opportunity. Interfering with Nicole’s retirement is Fred Stein, a crooked IT worker who recognizes her as Sally from the time the Travelers halted his credit card scheme. When these two wild cards intrude on the game, the cons end up pushed into some dark, murderous corners. For this latest Travelers outing, King (The Freeport Robbery, 2017, etc.) once again offers a lean, dialogue-driven blast of shifting alliances and action. Longtime fans will enjoy the emotional tapestry built around the notion that Nicole is “too old” to continue seducing marks and John needs to train her replacement. With minimal exposition, the author keeps his characters’ temperaments and decisions in the forefront of the story. It’s genuinely shocking—and narratively satisfying—when Nicole is honest with Denison and his family about being a con artist. Later, as events are boiling toward a fatal encounter, the Traveling Man’s no-nonsense savagery comes through in the line “I want to kill...so bad that I can taste his blood in my mouth.” As always, King leaves his creations in intriguing new positions by the end, ensuring anticipation for the next high-stakes volume.
This Travelers tale delivers another exceptional slice of gamesmanship, slippery morals, and emotional fallout.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9993648-2-6
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Blurred Lines Press
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
