A sinister plot to corner the truffles market provides the backdrop for another delightful trek through the French countryside in this third novel from the ever-popular Mayle (Hotel Pastis, 1993; A Dog's Life, 1995, not reviewed). An easygoing expatriate Brit with a career in film production behind him, Luciano Bennett couldn't be happier with his new, ambition-free life as a house-sitter in the tiny French village of Saint-Martin. Dreading a return to London once his meager savings run out, Bennett places an ad in the International Herald Tribune tendering his services. The ad is answered by the mysterious, extremely wealthy Julian Poe, who offers Bennett a luxurious, all- expenses-paid life in his Monaco bachelor pad in exchange for performing an occasional errand. Hardly believing his luck, Bennett throws himself wholeheartedly into a rich man's life—driving Poe's Mercedes around town and dining at the best restaurants on Poe's tab. What Bennett doesn't realize is that Poe plans to use him as the drop man for a secret formula for artificially cultivating truffles—a formula that will enable Poe to wrest control of the lucrative truffles market from the French. When Sicilian gangsters intercept the delivery of the formula, the enraged Poe threatens to kill Bennett if he doesn't recover it. A Keystone Kopsstyle chase across France ensues, involving half a dozen international gangsters, the French police, and a very unusual order of monks. Fortunately, Poe has arranged for lovely Anna Hersh, a former Israeli Army sergeant, to act as Bennett's accomplice, thus enabling Bennett to enjoy a number of deliciously romantic repasts in cafes throughout southern France before his final triumph over the bad guys. It is this gustatory travelogue, rather than the unabashedly silly caper, that will keep Mayles's loyal readers satisfied. Stylish and amusing as ever. (First printing of 150,000; Book- of-the-Month/QPB selection)
Pub Date: June 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-44123-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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