Readers who like quaint Lake Wobegon–esque narratives will enjoy rooting for the residents of Alpine Valley as they...
Determined to save their small mill town from disaster, the resolute residents of Alpine Valley set a clever ruse into motion in veteran television writer Crehan’s debut novel.
Norman Rockwell couldn’t have painted a better setting than Alpine Valley, population 581, elevation 8,467 feet. Superficially, everything looks idyllic in this quaint Pacific Northwest mill town. Scratch the veneer, however, and a more somber situation is revealed: The closure of the local mill has led to an erosion of the tax base, and the town’s debts are running dangerously high. Nobody understands the severity of the situation better than local realtor and mother of two Annie LaPeer, who’s also the town’s mayor. Forced to figure out a way out of the morass, she and the town’s residents decide to fall back on legend. If the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot can still attract enthusiastic gawkers, they reason, why not resuscitate the story of the Alpine Valley Ape? Sure, nobody in recent memory has seen the monster, but everybody knows somebody who swears he has. Soon people in town create a masterful video, apparently showing the primate in action. It goes viral, and the town gets just what it wants: an avalanche of tourists and their dollars. Unfortunately, the situation also brings fresh complications, which the denizens of Alpine Valley must now solve. Crehan ably uses his clear, well-defined characters to present various moral arguments in this promising young-adult mystery. Although the townsfolk occasionally veer into caricature, they add plenty of color to the proceedings. Most of the story is told in the first person by Annie’s daughter, Melissa LaPeer, and she often threatens to derail the plotline with constant attention-getting devices: “This is a particularly important chapter because particularly important things happen in it, and I’m a little fearful that I won’t be able to get these things across to you as well as I really must.” Whimsical at first, these asides become annoying after a while, and a less self-indulgent voice might have better served the novel’s purpose. The plot also slows down halfway through before finally roaring back into action.
Readers who like quaint Lake Wobegon–esque narratives will enjoy rooting for the residents of Alpine Valley as they valiantly struggle to hang on to a fast-fading way of life.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615981079
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Boda Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2014
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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