A thoroughly riveting Hollywood story of lies, back-stabbing, and murder.
In Barry’s thriller, a TV writer complicates his life when investigating a suspicious death that has ties to the prospective web series he’s currently a part of.
Conor Fallon has played the Hollywood game, disillusioned by others’ stealing his stories and ideas. Now (apparently the late 1990s), he’s barely scraping by in Los Angeles with a temp job, trying to support his wife, Juliet, and their infant son at home. So when Rand Bainreich, an old colleague, offers him a writing gig for a new series, Conor is simultaneously excited and wary. Mystery of Cydonia is, according to Rand, the first of its kind: an internet series for the website Sci-Fi Nexus. Conor has his eyes peeled for red flags, including the fact that the show’s premise is the same idea he pitched to Rand a couple of years prior. Meanwhile, the writer is fascinated by the recent death of actress Pamela Davenport. With details from newscaster friend Cal Reyburn, Conor learns that her death, initially believed to be accidental, shows indications of foul play. After realizing that Pam had originally been cast in Cydonia, he slowly discovers specific connections between her and individual crew members, leading Conor to surmise he’s working with a murderer. Barry (Sub Rosa: The Lost Formula, 2016, etc.) based his novel partly on his time as a Hollywood writer. The story is at its best with the TV show; Conor is perpetually on guard for duplicity, such as the indefinite withholding of his paycheck so that he works for free. There’s a successful fusion of fictional and real-life TV shows and movies, which adds realism to a tale set in Hollywood. Some of the titles are humorous parodies, including Saturday Night Boogie and Star Trails, for which Conor wrote (Barry has written for Star Trek). The concurrent murder plot is less engaging, though Barry keeps it simple, allowing the Cydonia storyline to shine. The taut prose furthermore ensures the narrative, rife with potential killers, never bores.
A thoroughly riveting Hollywood story of lies, back-stabbing, and murder.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9960809-6-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Sator Rotas Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2020
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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