On its own, a gripping tale of revenge and redemption.
Two psyche-scarred women, bound by tragic pasts and family secrets, vow to find out whether a man’s death was a suicide or murder.
Ari Wilburn was 10 when a hit-and-run driver killed her 8-year-old sister, Carli. That tragedy estranged Ari from her parents, especially her mother, who blamed her for Carli’s death. She’s not alone: Ari blames herself as well and has memories of pushing her sister just before the accident. She is banished to a childhood of group homes, foster care, and juvenile detention. A suicide survivor, she starts a support group where she meets Tina Alvarez, who has an even more harrowing past and is reeling from the death of her father, Josef, which the police have determined is a suicide. Tina’s story awakens something in Ari, and she promises to help her discover whether Josef was actually murdered. “Not out of obligation,” Ari states. “But because my decayed muscle of a heart had survived my life, and for once I cared about something. Someone. Perhaps I was human after all.” The risk of spoilers prohibits a deeper plot synopsis. The tale unfolds in chapters told from alternating perspectives, including those of Rosalita, Josef’s mother, who quite correctly prophesized when her son was an infant that he was evil; Tina, who harbors unspeakable secrets; and a killer with a definite agenda (“I’m no sociopath…I’ve been watching, waiting patiently for my turn”) that may expand to include Tina and Ari. As Ari becomes embroiled in Tina’s situation, she begins to uncover a terrifying connection to her own family. She starts to question whether Carli’s death was an accident. Crane’s (The Scream of Silence, 2016, etc.) latest novel is a dark ride; so bleak that even Gillian Flynn might say, “Lighten up.” Crane wallows in the victims’ blood. It pools, oozes, sloshes, and seeps. Eerie foreshadowing (the Ari chapter headings count the days until her death) and twisted revelations keep the pages turning, but the author’s empathy for her “broken” characters adds humanity to the macabre proceedings. Crane has two other ongoing series to her credit. That this becomes an origin story that sets a character up to be a private eye in future installments doesn’t quite feel organic.
On its own, a gripping tale of revenge and redemption.Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-940662-11-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Tabella House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 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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