Cameos by Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Walter Dew, amateur spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle (though Holmes himself is...
Nearly 40 years after the suicide of Emperor Theodore III, Abyssinia is back in the news—or at least on the blotter for Supt. Sholto Lestrade (Lestrade and the Dead Man’s Hand, 2000, etc.). The demise of Captain William Orange and his three nieces when the broken traces of their carriage send them hurtling to their Maker is only the beginning of a rash of suspicious accidents, each of them marked by sudden death and the presence close by of a broken Abyssinian mirror. Sherlock Holmes’s old police foil traces the fatalities from King Edward VII’s 1906 empire back to the dusty colonial adventure, during which Intelligence Captain Charles Speedy disappeared soon after claiming to have discovered a secret beyond price. Now the tune Speedy used to whistle forms the rickety backbone for a murder plot as far-reaching (ten victims) as it is improbable. His trademark obtuseness and shameless puns and malapropisms to the fore, Lestrade wades through the gore and the political complications (from the twilight of Queen Victoria’s empire to young Princess Victoria’s impending marriage to Alfonso XIII of Spain) to confront the most unlikely killer in his 14 adventures so far available in the Colonies.
Cameos by Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Walter Dew, amateur spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle (though Holmes himself is absent), and John Buchan, who at the fadeout is preparing to turn the whole mess into a much better novel than this one.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-89526-233-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
Intriguing first novel, by a Miami Herald syndicated ``dating'' columnist, that dances among horror, the occult, and a rational explanation for its weird moments, . At seven, Hilton James found his grandmother Nana dead on the kitchen floor and ran for help. But Nana was up and cooking dinner by the time he returned with help. Then, the next year, Hilton disobeyed Nana while swimming, got caught in the undertow, and was saved from drowning by Nana, who in turn allowed herself to be sucked under. Now, nearing 40, Hilton, an African-American, is head social worker at a Miami recovery center, has married Dede Campbell, the newly elected first black female circuit court judge in Dade County, and has two children. Hilton, however, fears that he's lived 30 years on borrowed time and that that time's up. Clairvoyant events point to Nana's having refused to die because she foresaw Hilton's drowning and stayed alive to save him. As a blind homeless man at the clinic tells him, there is a place between life and death called The Between, where ``travelers'' wait before entering the final door—all this from a blind man who actually died about two hours before Hilton had his talk with him! And what of Hilton's seduction by a supersexy client—a seduction he later finds never took place? Hilton undergoes still more fantasies bordering on virtual reality as, meanwhile, Dede receives racist death threats by mail—threats that, psychically, Hilton sees come from Charles Ray Goode, a released rapist whom Dede once sent to jail. With a psychiatrist, Hilton hashes over ``death cultures'' brought to this country from Africa, but chooses to agree that it's more likely that he's a schizophrenic. Later, Dede throws him out of the house for neglecting his children and physically hurting his son, but takes him back when told of Hilton's seeming illness. Together, they will face the man terrorizing them.... Neatly plotted and smoothly told, with an ending that avoids concrete explanations about Hilton's mental state.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-017250-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
A lovelorn winemaker’s daughter seeks the right way to crush sour grapes into a winning blend.
Days before her wedding, Georgia’s relationship breaks down. But when she tries to escape home to wine country, she discovers nearly as many fissures in her family.
In the navel-gazing microcosm of California, worlds don’t get much more different than Los Angeles and Sonoma: the former rich in artificial vice, the latter in cultivated flavor. Dave, a seasoned writer of literary romance (The First Husband, 2011, etc.), explores this divide through the eyes of Georgia Ford, a 30-year-old LA–based corporate lawyer on the cusp of marrying her dream guy, Ben. He’s a devastating British architect, of course—rom-coms breed such fellows on a Burberry island somewhere—and his long-ago fling with an equally devastating movie star resulted in a 4-year-old daughter he's just learned about. Cue the devastation for Georgia, who flees up the coast in wedding garb after spying the seemingly happy family walk by during her final dress fitting. Destination: The Last Straw, the idyllic family vineyard in Sebastopol where she grew up with handsome twin brothers and crazy-in-love parents. Unfortunately, the clarity Georgia hopes to find there is quickly marred by everyone else’s problems. Her parents’ marriage is faltering; her feisty brothers are warring over a woman; and, in the deepest cut of all, her dad plans to sell the vineyard that’s always anchored them. As Georgia weighs her ambivalence about Ben, she struggles to understand the parade of relationships blooming and busting around her. Through a series of flashbacks that range from canny to cloying, we learn how the Ford family has reached this collective crisis point. Resolutions arrive slowly and often unexpectedly for each of them, giving this satisfying novel legs.
A lovelorn winemaker’s daughter seeks the right way to crush sour grapes into a winning blend.Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-8925-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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