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KARMA

For the first two-thirds of his new novel, Smith (Due North, 1992, etc.) can't decide whether he's writing a study of one man's Vietnam post-traumatic stress syndrome or a vulnerable-loner- fights-against-impossible-odds thriller. When he chooses (less pretentiously) the latter, the jettisoned baggage allows him a flashy sprint to the finish line. Evan Scott, an architect out of Groton and Yale who excels at polo and fencing, is standing atop a very wrong edifice one threatening Manhattan night when he sees a young woman fall from an unfinished Madison Avenue skyscraper across the street. Not too many days pass before be learns that: a) she didn't fall but was pushed; and b) his bruited presence has become a threat to those behind the pushing. Suddenly additional people are dropping dead, including coworker/lover, Sanchia Fuentes. Frustratingly, no one in whom Scott confides believes the accumulating mishaps are anything more than coincidental. The skeptics include Scott's wife, Catherine (herself privileged and quite an upper-class bigot); his bosses, who suggest an immediate vacation; and the police, who think Scott's cries of wolf may be a cover-up for homicidal tendencies. Those who know Scott is speaking the truth are the three Hindu brothers who lend their name to Rao Electric, the firm doing the wiring for ill-fated 366 Madison. (They've been monkeying around on their highly recompensed job, though neither Evan nor the reader gets the details till the very end.) Only an aging newsstand owner named Ram Dass Lal takes Scott's side and, indeed, insists on helping bell the meanies in their lairs. Having found in the Raos a fresh twist on developers-as-'90s-villains, Smith gets the action moving from New York City to New Jersey to Maine with guns blazing, knives flashing, elevators soaring, guts spilling, blood spurting. On balance, good Karma. (Literary Guild selection)

Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1994

ISBN: 0-525-93773-0

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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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