A tight, rock-solid installment in a series that’s only getting better.
Pronko’s (The Last Train, 2017, etc.) Tokyo-based thriller follows a detective’s search for a manuscript so valuable some will kill for it.
Hiroshi Shimizu’s injury from a previous case is the perfect excuse for the detective to work white-collar crimes from a computer. But Sakaguchi, Tokyo’s head of homicide, needs his English-speaking adeptness, courtesy of Hiroshi’s having studied in Boston. On a bisected body, a medical examiner has found a flash drive that contains images of woodblock prints and corresponding notes in English. It doesn’t seem like much until detectives learn the only specialist who could find the physical prints has just died—American diplomat Bernard Mattson, murdered by burglars at his home. As Hiroshi and others investigate, it’s soon clear someone is after Mattson’s manuscript. But what exactly is in the manuscript is the biggest mystery: The diplomat is linked to myriad sensitive issues, from U.S. military bases in Japan to the Status of Forces Agreement with America. Hiroshi is also keeping an eye on Jamie, Mattson’s Japanese-American daughter from New York, who’s in Tokyo for her father’s funeral. She may be a target; whoever wants the manuscript will likely assume she knows its location. Pronko’s thriller elegantly depicts Japanese customs within an American-style hard-boiled procedural. For example, lovingly detailed sushi preparation contrasts with the police station, a site of whiteboard scrawls, corkboards covered in notes, and piles of folders next to out-of-date computers. The concise mystery runs at full tilt with characters that focus assiduously on the investigation. Accordingly, welcome humor is plot-relevant: Detectives at crime scenes alternate heading off the assistant chief, who’s more annoying than helpful. Hiroshi, in his second appearance (along with fellow detectives), is a winsome but unassuming protagonist. Though he’d rather be at his computer, he faces a blade-wielding killer with confidence and relatively few complaints.
A tight, rock-solid installment in a series that’s only getting better.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-942410-16-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Raked Gravel Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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