A clever, intricately plotted thriller.
A financially strapped advertising executive faces murder charges after a stranger approaches him with a disturbing proposition in Hargreaves’ debut novel.
Jeremy Grey is nursing a drink in a bar when a gray-haired man, watchful of the surveillance monitors, enters. Grey tells the man, “I just don’t think I can do it.” The man appears displeased, inquires about Grey’s son, and tries to convince Jeremy otherwise. When Jeremy hands him back an envelope, the man creates a scuffle, pulling out a gun and then a knife. Grey manages to grab the dropped gun and shoots the man dead. The police soon discover that the victim is District Court Judge Danton Harwell. Grey admits that he knew the man but only as “Bill”; they first met in the hospital, where Grey was visiting his critically ill son. Bill told Grey that he had terminal cancer and would pay Grey to kill him in an arranged self-defense incident so that the man’s sick wife could get insurance money for medical costs. Grey admits he needs funds for his son’s heart transplant and to fight a partner’s power grab of their ad agency, but he was handing back Harwell’s starter payment in the bar. The police believe him, especially as they uncover various discrepancies and oddities in Harwell’s life and judicial dealings. Meanwhile, Grey draws ever closer to assistant Marsha, who has been helping him deal with the recent death of his wife and other son, killed a few weeks before in a car accident. Once Harwell’s will is read, Grey is arrested. When surprisingly allowed out on bail, he finally learns the twisted role Harwell has played in his life. This first novel by Canadian advertising professional Hargreaves has an intriguing Strangers on a Train–type setup and suspenseful sequences of flashbacks and forward-moving activity featuring Grey and several other key players. While the setting of the novel remains a bit hazy (it appears to be Toronto), this investigative puzzle is largely well-paced, much like a Law & Order episode, with a few overly detailed subplot detours before its nifty wrap-up. Overall, an accomplished debut.
A clever, intricately plotted thriller.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-32-020905-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: Temerity Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
