To paraphrase one of Gallagher’s own character descriptions, this is a novel with high expectations for itself—a book with...
In this debut crime thriller, a disgraced former Chicago Gangs Unit cop seeks vindication and redemption while investigating a series of grisly murders.
One year after accidentally shooting and killing an 11-year-old boy in a Chicago housing project, Detective “Tow Truck” Miller is offered a transfer to Homicide. At the same time, a serial killer starts terrorizing the city, seemingly exacting revenge for the murders of two call girls. As Miller races against time to catch the killer, he also searches for a witness who might be able to clear him in the previous, tragic shooting. Gallagher efficiently juggles concurrent subplots that propel the novel forward as they introduce a disparate gallery of characters, including trader Richard Landon, whose run of bad luck includes a devastating financial loss at the hands of Rosco Mink, the serial killer’s latest victim; Landon’s sexually voracious, high-maintenance lover, Vicki; his former fiancée, Katie O’Connor, whose mother, Madeline, oversees the police board that will decide Miller’s fate; and 12-year-old Ben Foster and his new friend, Spider, whose impoverished families have been devastated by gang violence. This is an ambitious police procedural, murder mystery and social-issues novel in the vein of Richard Price, the author of Clockers (1992). Gallagher vividly renders Chicago’s tony Gold Coast, whose denizens have “real money…[a]nd power,” as well as gang-infested projects and insulated suburbs that hide their own secrets. However, he lacks Price’s mastery of plotting and his pitch-perfect ear for dialogue; Spider’s patois is particularly ham-handed (“Ain’t no polices comin’. Po-lices doan bother with no fire crackers”). More, too, could have been made of Miller’s reputation for strong-arm “Gang Crimes tactics,” with his new, more politically sensitive beat. Gallagher is better at conveying how the city works for rich, white people, and how it doesn’t work for struggling African-Americans. For example, during the media circus surrounding the serial murders, Ben notes how, when his father was shot, “there were no headlines for him.” The pieces of the puzzle ultimately fit together, albeit not all seamlessly, but the twist ending packs a lingering wallop.
To paraphrase one of Gallagher’s own character descriptions, this is a novel with high expectations for itself—a book with depth that, despite its shortcomings, is endlessly interesting.Pub Date: July 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1467545303
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ampersand Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2015
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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