The author alters the stakes in this entertaining con artist tale and brings his characters full circle.
This sixth installment of a series finds the Traveling Man grifting alone while his partner enjoys a normal life.
The Traveling Man, a career con artist, is using the name Tony Rogers while in Mitchellville, Maryland. His wife, continuing under the alias Nicole, has opted for semiretirement with millionaire James Denison in San Francisco. Tony flies without his usual backup into the midst of lawyer Jerry Chen, National Defense Agent Paul Robertson, and several other conspirators who have stolen NGO aid funds from Kyrgyzstan. Chen plans to break into the safe of Clemens, the conspirator holding key bank account codes, to protect himself from being offed by someone killing members of the group. The attorney contacts Missy Grey, a player who calls Tony to crack the safe. The heist goes well until someone murders Duke and Barker, Tony’s partners, making it personal. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Nicole battles the boredom of living straight by taking on Lily Crockett, a young apprentice criminal. Together they flirt and drink with men and joyride in stolen cars. But when Lily attempts a solo adventure, the callow con doesn’t escape the attention of her marks. They steal her purse and threaten to unravel her life, which forces Nicole to step in. In this latest volume of The Travelers series, King (The Kidnap Victim, 2018, etc.) maintains his svelte, addictive style despite a touch of nostalgia for his characters’ early days. As Nicole reminds Tony, “Money spends better when you have to steal it.” Denison can’t quite douse Nicole’s grifting fire, and she frequently tells him not to worry (“Just relax. This isn’t Cricket Bay”). The plot’s main thrill is seeing Tony in action alone among a half-dozen greedy backstabbers. There’s fresh tension here, as the author eventually proves that his con has “that old happiness” with Nicole and is “one step better than he was on his own.” From the elegiac tone, readers may suspect disaster in the final pages. Or will events leave the Travelers prepped for either the quiet life or another thrilling mark?
The author alters the stakes in this entertaining con artist tale and brings his characters full circle.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9993648-5-7
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Blurred Lines Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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