A bleak and disquieting but extraordinary character study.
Fleetwood’s debut thriller details a murderer’s painstakingly detailed confession, written for an inspector who ultimately crosses his path.
Thirty-two-year-old Alex Melville moved from America to Europe as a child and is currently living in Sicily, working as a freelance translator. He first sees Valentina outside a café and follows her before introducing himself. She has physical traits that appeal to him—her face, her hair, her beautiful skin—and he buys her lavish gifts, starting with expensive chocolates. He convinces her to come to his Catania home, where he attempts to imprison her as part of a plan that isn’t immediately revealed. Unforeseen events, however, thwart his intentions, and he winds up on the run from authorities. In need of a place to hide, Alex looks for his missing younger sister, Sonia. Her problems with cocaine have attached her to a thuggish boyfriend, Carlo Riccio, who, unsurprisingly, doesn’t provide Alex much help in finding her. Alex’s search takes him to his old home in Luxembourg, where he meets an initially unnamed inspector. This novel takes the form of a first-person confession that Alex is recording for this new acquaintance. Fate has put the two of them together, and a violent conclusion to their association seems inescapable. Fleetwood’s gloomy tale is split into three parts: Alex’s attempts to ensnare Valentina; his time as a fugitive; and the twisty final act with the inspector. All three are equally riveting as they relay the exploits of the deeply disturbed narrator. It’s evident that Alex has a sinister agenda, even when his specific intentions are shadowy—although readers will likely guess them. His narration eerily blends the grotesque with the beautiful: at one point, he equates a blade with a flute, musing, “Oh, the music it could play. The melodies of the flesh.” Most impressively, the author gradually offers different perspectives on Alex: Carlo and his minions are brutal, practically turning Alex into a victim, and the third part of the novel may even generate a modicum of reader sympathy for him. The appropriately dark conclusion has a particularly stark finality.
A bleak and disquieting but extraordinary character study.Pub Date: June 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5215-8602-0
Page Count: 293
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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