An enjoyable diversion with a little something extra for political junkies and followers of the Supreme Court.
In this mystery, a Supreme Court justice suddenly dies days before the court is expected to rule on a Florida presidential election recount.
Melissa “Mel” McGinty of the Supreme Court Police Force is making her nighttime rounds when she discovers the body of Justice Oliver Wendell Oglethorpe on the floor of the court’s gym. She calls her boss, Lt. Frank Fort, who arrives with two FBI agents. Mel is told to stay out of the investigation; instead, she calls a meeting of the Amazon Detective Agency, an eclectic group of women who possess an assortment of skills from computer hacking to fortunetelling. She also consults her “sometimes live-in boyfriend,” Mike Mahoney, a recently retired Arlington, Virginia, police officer. Oglethorpe, one of two African-American judges on the court, was appointed by current President Richard Fett, which gave Fett an all-important fifth conservative vote on the bench. But after the death of Oglethorpe’s wife, the justice seemed to experience a political change of heart on many matters. One of them may have been the decision on the Florida recount. And there are other groups whose causes could be served by Oglethorpe’s death, as well as an anonymous white supremacist making noise online. There are plenty of potential suspects for readers to consider in Oster’s (The Hacker Chronicles, 2017, etc.) breezy, often humorous mystery. Narrator Mel, who was raised by a detective dad and schooled by old private-eye flicks, is a smart and delightfully persistent gumshoe who has the potential to effectively carry her own series. Oster makes effective use of his many years of experience as a journalist, which included a decade covering the Supreme Court for venues such as the National Law Journal, for which he was editor-in-chief, and Bloomberg News. His occasional, knowledgeable forays into serious issues before the bench (including oil pipelines, abortion, and gun control, among others) add heft to what’s otherwise a relatively light detective novel. The story’s final twist is most satisfying.
An enjoyable diversion with a little something extra for political junkies and followers of the Supreme Court.Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9916437-6-9
Page Count: 337
Publisher: Padraig Press
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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