Joe may be a good CFO, but he’s an even better detective and carries the mystery like a seasoned professional.
In Kelly’s (Hill Country Greed, 2013) second thriller featuring Joe Robbins, the chief financial officer is determined to connect a shady businessman to a drug cartel after Joe’s friend is murdered.
Joe’s content with his new gig as temporary CFO of Hill Country Capital, a real estate fund, but his best friend, Neil Blaney, isn’t so sure the company is kosher. Neil recommended Joe for the job, but now he’s worried about Kenji Tanaka, an investor for the firm, whom Neil suspects may be involved with drug smuggling. He digs into Kenji’s background, but someone puts a few bullets in Neil before he can tell Joe anything other than a cryptic “[h]e’s working with the cartels” as he dies. Joe picks up on an investigation Neil had already initiated, questioning a DEA agent and company employees. Very few people are forthcoming, which means that Joe’s friend may have stumbled onto something big—but also that Joe may be on his own. Murder initially seems to be just another subplot: The story begins like a drama, as Joe hopes to reunite with estranged wife, Rose, and daughters, Chandler and Callie, while helping Amity Jones, a prostitute, get into rehab, footing the bill when he can hardly afford it. But the mystery gradually takes the lead, and all of Joe’s struggles—from emotional to financial—affect his decisions as he works to solve the mystery. The capable protagonist had been a boxer and knows how to shoot a gun, so he’s more than prepared for an eventual confrontation. Joe’s wanting to repair his broken family is a worthy purpose, highlighted by several scenes with Chandler and Callie; he listens to the 10- and 8-year-old fight over who gets to talk to Daddy on the phone in a sequence that’s endearing without feeling contrived or too sappy. References to Kelly’s preceding novel are kept in check so readers unfamiliar with the series won’t be lost.
Joe may be a good CFO, but he’s an even better detective and carries the mystery like a seasoned professional.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0991103331
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Chaparral Press LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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