As in his dark debut, Shooting Dr. Jack (2001), Green presents a cast of folks who talk like Elmore Leonard but live in a...
An Army veteran returns to a Brooklyn Heights stewpot that makes his recent tour of Vietnam look like a cakewalk.
Even before he rose to power in one of New York’s Five Families, Domenic Scalia never liked Silvano Iurata. He thinks his underachieving cousin killed Little Dom’s mobbed-up father Angelo 20 years earlier. He thinks Silvano slept with his sister Jeannette and drove her to a cloistered order as the only place she could escape him. He’s made it clear that he’d like nothing better than to slit Silvano’s throat—if only he could find him. And now it’s 1973, and Silvano is back in town, living in the Montague, a rotting hotel right under his cousin’s nose, asking questions about his brother Nunzio, who disappeared from the even more decrepit St. Felix with nary a trace. His nosy questions provide a golden opportunity for Little Dom to avenge his relatives, consolidate his power, and make his move on the Black and White armored car company—all the while giving Ivan Bonifacio, his latest enforcer, a chance to flex his muscles. Silvano knows his cousin is gunning for him, but he’s not losing any sleep over the dangers of returning to the neighborhood. He’s a man who can handle himself—even before his military stint, he’d compiled an impressive record as an amateur boxer—and his thirst for vengeance is just as strong as Little Dom’s. Joined on occasion by beautiful Elia Taskent of Black and White, he navigates the treacherous byways of Brooklyn, meeting a dozen sad survivors for a hundred unforgettable conversations on the road to his destiny.
As in his dark debut, Shooting Dr. Jack (2001), Green presents a cast of folks who talk like Elmore Leonard but live in a reeking urban hell right out of George P. Pelecanos—along with their sense of grim fatalism in the face of impossible odds.Pub Date: May 12, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-018819-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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