Readers may see where it’s going, but this droll narrative’s still a witty, boisterous ride.
Rabin’s debut comedy follows two childhood friends and their misadventures in Brazil with a Jesuit priest, a bomb-loving career criminal, and an unassuming Nazi.
Twenty-three-year-old Hart’s new job takes him from a one-bedroom apartment in Westwood, California, to São Paulo. His first day as senior manager for the Maytag Corporation has yet to begin when his best friend, Simon Jovenda, apparently kidnaps him. Simon, who’d grown up with Hart, had left for Brazil some time ago to find his father’s family and catch some Nazis. So Hart’s justifiably baffled when he winds up on a plane with his assistant, Carmen Dos Reis, Simon, and former German army medic/tennis player Raymond Gil. They land and trek through the jungle to meet a couple of Simon’s friends: a priest and a gruff man covered in tattoos. Meanwhile, criminal boss Julian “Shadow” Coelho, fed up with the greed of local mob PCC, implores his convict buddy Carlos Dos Reis to make something more of his life. Carlos teams up with four mobsters—and Shadow supporters—to cause a bit of property damage in São Paulo using homemade bombs. Carlos’ path will ultimately intersect with Hart’s before the younger man can understand his involuntary journey. But even Simon, who claims he’s trying to save Hart, admits that his original plan may have gone off the rails. The author initially structures his novel like a series of vignettes, bouncing around the timeline with myriad characters, including pregnant Manuela Dos Reis. It’s never confusing, though, and consistently entertaining courtesy of Rabin’s humor-laced prose, foreshadowing Hart’s propensity for carsickness and later delivering a revolting but hilarious moment. There are links to the stories, too, before everything comes together at the end, such as repeated references to the upcoming 2016 Olympics in Brazil. Rabin, in fact, so meticulously develops the characters and their backgrounds that the eventual reveals are hardly surprising; in a few instances, they’re almost inevitable. Nonetheless, the book’s practically buzzing with quirky subplots, like Hart’s boss’ seeming obsession with tracking down his employee and the tale of how Hart inadvertently started working for a pornographic film company.
Readers may see where it’s going, but this droll narrative’s still a witty, boisterous ride.Pub Date: April 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9970468-1-6
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Ponderosa Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2016
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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