Precarious politics take precedence over murder in this striking genre entry.
Private eye Max Christian helps a friend who’s running for Congress and enters a seedy world of murder, drugs, and politics in Goldman’s (The Last Minstrel Show, 2012, etc.) latest thriller.
Max’s newest case seems like an easy one at first. His friend, Edith Clift, is eyeing a congressional seat, so she hires him to follow her husband, Henry. She knows that Henry is cheating on her, but she wants proof in order to convince him to remain loyal until the election’s over. But things quickly get hairy: Max finds out that Henry has links to a Guatemalan company, which, in turn, has ties to a mob family. What’s more, Henry becomes a potential murder suspect when a singer he knows is killed. Meanwhile, Edith’s opponent, I.M. Trubble, lives up to his name; his negative ads lead Max to dig up dirt on Trubble while he searches for a killer. Despite the murder investigation, this novel is chiefly a political thriller. This works in the book’s favor, as Edith’s case is more engaging, with its Mafia-style hitmen and scandalous secrets. The bubbling campaign war, too, is intense and rightly described by Max as “ugly.” Indeed, Max isn’t even officially investigating the murder case but simply conferring with the lead investigator, his former New York Police Department partner Tina Falcone. There aren’t many suspects and no real surprises in either case, but there’s resolution across the board. Max is a whimsical protagonist with a freight of eccentricities; he partly takes Edith’s case in order to reunite with his estranged wife, Meridew, who’s Edith’s best friend; and he only has two-thirds of a right ear due to a shootout years ago and which everyone suggests should be “fixed up.” His most notable quirk, however, is the fact that he has frequent conversations with French writer and philosopher Albert Camus. Max calls him a ghost, but Goldman smartly keeps the interactions ambiguous; they could just as well be playing out in Max’s head. Their talks are often humorous—Max disguises one of them by holding a BlackBerry to his ear while in a crowded elevator—but they’re never quite as entertaining as the discussions Max has with the charmingly cynical Tina.
Precarious politics take precedence over murder in this striking genre entry.Pub Date: March 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1505908770
Page Count: 300
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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