A serpentine whodunit with amateur sleuthing, plenty of satisfying suspense, and more adventures ahead.
A teenager and his uncle investigate a Maryland murder with dangerous implications.
Dedicated to “victims of corporate greed and environmental destruction,” author and licensed acupuncturist Allen’s (The Yeti Quotient, 2011) novel incorporates elements of corruption, deception, avarice, and heroism, beginning with the at-gunpoint kidnapping of ecological engineer Andrew “Andy” Harrington. Months later, a Halloween hayride chaperone for Maryland’s historic Ellicott City school sports program discovers the bones of a young girl long entombed in the foundation of the Patapsco Female Institute, an abandoned facility previously used to house young women over a century ago. Thirteen-year-old, redheaded Jack Tasker and his uncle/caretaker Ben, a snoopy local news reporter, become curious about the discovery, especially when a more recently buried body is uncovered near the institute, which ratchets up the enigma twofold. Meanwhile, burned-out local politician Eugene Clark receives a shifty offer to form a “symbiotic relationship” with an unscrupulous multinational natural gas company to allow hydro-fracking near several key waterways like the Chesapeake Bay in exchange for his guaranteed re-election as a county executive. Clark is bullied into signing the agreement just as reports emerge that the newly excavated body is that of a young man who’d been shot to death. Believing the institute is haunted, Jack and Ben go on a clandestine fact-finding mission. This further solidifies their relationship as uncle and nephew, but also as inquisitive, if neophyte, detectives in a tale that—because of its innocuous detailing and climactic plotting—should have safe appeal for both YA and adult mystery fans. The compelling story continues to unravel with an otherworldly aspect when the two encounter an apparition and a backpack ditched in the hollow of a tree trunk. A telltale diary leads to long-held secrets that place Jack and Ben in the cross hairs of despicable corporate henchmen banking on the success of a nefarious corruption scheme. The tale is smoothly written in clipped chapters with lots of homespun tidbits, informational asides on the semantics of hydraulic fracturing, and vivid, politically charged backlash and environmental intrigue. Though the two protagonists remain charismatic and remarkably engaging throughout, both deserve more than a few pages of back story. Hopefully, readers will get to know more about the dynamic duo in future installments of Allen’s series.
A serpentine whodunit with amateur sleuthing, plenty of satisfying suspense, and more adventures ahead.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-935083-47-4
Page Count: 340
Publisher: CyPress Publications
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2017
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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