An opportunity squandered. Anderson has a great subject, but this lazy compendium of picks and pans barely scratches its...
Washington Post thriller reviewer Anderson (Rich as Sin, 1991, etc.) has observed that thrillers have colonized bestseller lists for 25 years, and he wants you to know all about it, except for the reason why.
Fifty years ago, sex and politics made Peyton Place and Advise and Consent blockbusters. Now, these surefire topics have been replaced by crime in books by John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson. Arguing that “The Da Vinci Code is our Gone with the Wind,” Anderson promises to tell why and how suspense thrillers became so commercially dominant. Apart from some vague remarks about post-Vietnam disillusionment, however, that’s exactly what he doesn’t do. Instead, he follows the tried-and-true formula of earlier examinations of crime fiction from Howard Haycraft’s Murder for Pleasure to Julian Symons’s Mortal Consequences: Consider the genre’s leading figures one at a time, introducing each with a brief biography, then focusing on a small number of representative novels he’s reviewed since 2000 or mugged up for this exercise (for a reviewer with larger aspirations, he’s surprisingly ill-read in the history of the genre). Analysis is upstaged by plot summary, quotations of Anderson’s columns and an obsession with evaluative rankings that make you wonder if you’re reading a hyper-extended review. For the record, Anderson thinks The Silence of the Lambs is “the greatest of modern thrillers” and Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels “the finest crime series anyone has written.” Delphic references to how “the writing is what matters” comport uneasily with lists of sales figures. And Anderson’s vigorous defense of the best thrillers as the equals of “the best literary fiction” is confounded by his judgments of Dennis Lehane and John Sandford’s series novels as “too entertaining.”
An opportunity squandered. Anderson has a great subject, but this lazy compendium of picks and pans barely scratches its surface.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2007
ISBN: 0-345-48123-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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