A crime tale with a fierce, flawed heroine who surmounts plenty of perils and a few choice men.
In this sequel, a New Yorker with a past might not have a future after a vagrant’s gift puts her in mortal danger.
“What the hell do you wear to a funeral for a homeless guy?” Charley Anderson asks herself in the novel’s first sentence, immediately clueing readers to the main character’s irreverent attitude. An Upper East Sider, Metropolitan Museum of Art Board member, and multimillionaire, 40-year-old Charley suffers physical and emotional scars from a horrifying accident years earlier. Not to the manor born, Charley feels more comfortable talking to her doorman Carlton and Ben Williams, the homeless man always stationed outside her high-rise, than to the building’s residents. Upon learning of Ben’s death, Charley claims his body, pays for his burial (she’s the only gravesite visitor), and learns he left instructions to give her an envelope containing a pencil-written partial address, a key, remnants of a checkbook, and a girl’s faded photograph. Following the interment, Charley returns home to find a letter saying no harm will come to her if she turns over the contents of Ben’s envelope to a P.O. box. Soon Carlton, who had ties to the threatening letter, is found dead, his body tortured. A race ensues to find the lock that Ben’s key fits, the girl in his pocketed photo, and the culprit who killed Carlton before harm comes to Charley. Her chauffer, Jeff Jackson; private investigator Nash Pope and his team; and banker Joe Turner offer their assistance in keeping Charley safe and solving the mystery of why the contents of Ben’s envelope were cause for murder. (Joe also helps out in the bedroom.) Accounts of Met fundraising and artist name-dropping enrich Long’s (Scars, 2018) thriller. Representatives of various ages, ethnic backgrounds, social strata, and sexual preferences form a tapestry not unexpected in New York City but welcome in a novel. The author organically inserts revelations of Charley’s backstory from the series’ origin book. But the torture scenes are gratuitous, even if lithe, blond Charley, who can blind a man “with her bare hands,” is the one dealing out the pain. Believable dialogue and occasional humor pepper the narrative. And descriptions can be compelling: “She projected authority that made whoever sat in the facing chair feel extremely small.”
A crime tale with a fierce, flawed heroine who surmounts plenty of perils and a few choice men.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991810-6-5
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Yellow City Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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