A high-stakes, high-tension yarn in which you keep wishing everything would turn out fine for the deeply flawed, deeply...
Now that he’s antagonized every other lawman in the state of Maine (Trespasser, 2011, etc.), game warden Mike Bowditch gets exiled to Washington County, the Down East territory where nothing ever happens. Things happen.
A snowy dinner with Doc Larrabee, the elderly veterinarian who’s one of the few people on speaking terms with Mike, and Doc’s friend, survivalist/professor Kevin Kendrick, ends when Doc, somewhat the worse for liquor, asks Mike to respond with him to his neighbor Ben Sprague’s call for help. Seems that someone has staggered out of the blizzard into the Spragues’ home and told Ben and his wife, Doris, a wild story about a friend he left wandering out in the snow. The someone, Mike realizes on their arrival, is Prester Sewall, brother of local beauty Jamie Sewall, who’s constitutionally drawn to all the wrong men, from her bullying little ex Mitch Munro, father of her son Lucas, to Randall Cates, the drug dealer she’s been seeing most recently. The friend, Mike soon discovers when he and Kevin go looking for him, is Randall Cates. His death, which seems at first like a happy ending for Jamie, looks both backward to the overdose last year of college student Trinity Raye and forward to the consequences of Mike’s fatal attraction to Jamie. The story’s ultimate import becomes clear only after more bad weather, some truly ugly surprises and the obligatory standoffs between Mike and everyone capable of fighting with him.
A high-stakes, high-tension yarn in which you keep wishing everything would turn out fine for the deeply flawed, deeply sympathetic hero even though you know it won't.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-55848-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Perfect for readers who wish To Kill a Mockingbird had been presented from a slightly older, male point of view.
Eskens’ latest novel is a warmhearted story of a white teenager's awakening to the racial tensions that run through his Missouri town in 1976.
Years before he’ll become a successful attorney (The Shadows We Hide, 2018, etc.), Boady Sanden struggles to navigate all the usual high school ordeals in small-town Jessup, including boring subjects and bullying by the likes of all-state wrestler and prom king Jarvis Halcomb. In Boady’s case, these everyday problems are aggravated by his outsider status as a non-Catholic freshman at St. Ignatius High School, his home life with his widowed, introverted mother, Emma, and, most recently, the arrival of some new neighbors, the Elgins. Charles Elgin is definitely an improvement on indolent Cecil Halcomb, Jarvis' father, whom he replaces as manager of the local manufacturing plant after bookkeeper Lida Poe disappears with more than $100,000 of the plant’s money. Jenna Elgin is excellent company for Emma Sanden, whom she helps draw out of her shell. And after a comically unfortunate first encounter, Boady quickly takes to their son, Thomas, who’s exactly his age. But the Elgins, like Lida Poe, are African American, and the combination of an unsolved embezzlement, good old boy Cecil’s displacement by an outsider, and the town’s incipient racism works slowly but inexorably to put Boady, recruited by the Crusaders of Racial Purity and Strength, under pressure to betray his new friendship. Declining to join the racists but repeatedly running away rather than refusing their demands point blank, Boady must navigate a perilous route to supporting his community and claiming his own adult identity.
Perfect for readers who wish To Kill a Mockingbird had been presented from a slightly older, male point of view.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-50972-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
What starts off as Easter eggs ends up as one big, shapeless omelet in Lucy’s feckless 21st.
A holiday tradition turns lethal in small-town Maine.
The residents of Tinker’s Cove have always dressed their toddlers in their Sunday best for the annual Easter egg hunt at Vivian Van Vorst’s beautiful mansion. But this year, Pine Point is looking a bit seedy. The lawn is unkempt, no one is directing traffic, and VV is nowhere to be seen. Worst of all, her grandson, Van Vorst Duff, dressed in a bunny suit, drops dead at the gates of the estate before he can hide a single egg. Lucy Stone (Chocolate Covered Murder, 2011, etc.), ace reporter for the Tinker’s Cove Pennysaver, takes time off from covering the town council meeting to help her colleague Phyllis’ niece Elfrida cater Van’s funeral—giving her plenty of opportunity to snoop. She discovers that VV is being confined to her room and fed nothing but canned nutritional supplement while her granddaughter Vicky Allen and Vicky’s husband, Henry, aided by unscrupulous lawyer George Weatherby, sell off her priceless art treasures. When the Allens give VV’s faithful butler Willis the sack, they have a fight on their hands. Thanks to local attorney Bob Goodman, the trio is brought to trial on charges of elder abuse. Reporters from all over the country choke the streets of Gilead, the county seat. Famous defense attorney Howard Zuzick, representing the Allens, looks as if he might have some tricks up his sleeve. But surprise! Meier drops that plot and instead packs Lucy off on a mission to hunt down VV’s long-lost daughter for former librarian Miss Julia Tilley.
What starts off as Easter eggs ends up as one big, shapeless omelet in Lucy’s feckless 21st.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7582-2935-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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