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DESERT KILL

Name: DESERT KILL
Author: Philip Gerard
ISBN: 0-688-12641-3

by Philip Gerard ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 22, 1994

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The action and descriptions in this haunting crime noir perfectly capture the beauty and brutality of its desert setting. Gerard (Hatteras Light, 1986) cleverly uses psychological insight and other, more conventional contemporary crime novel devices to great advantage while leaving many genre clichÇs behind. The story begins when English professor Roy Pope is asked by his uncle Paul, a Phoenix homicide detective, to identify what appears to be the mutilated body of Cindy Callison, a part-time student in one of Roy's classes who, when not studying, made her living as a stripper. As the investigation drags on, Roy's wife, Eileen, becomes suspicious of her spouse's involvement in the case. Did Roy have a thing for good-looking Cindy, and was the attraction mutual? While trying to unravel that murder, Paul unearths other bodies in a similar state of dismemberment. He also discovers that the first corpse was not Cindy but some unlucky stranger dressed in her clothes. Now a brutal psychopath stalks the mean streets of Phoenix while the mysterious Ms. Callison's whereabouts are still unknown. Throughout these grim proceedings, a narrator, presumably the murderer, ``broadcasts'' from what he or she calls Base Station, describing in cryptic terms his or her crimes and motivations. These transmissions subtly imbue the reader with a mounting sense of dread as the hunt for clues in the desert landscape seems increasingly futile. After the perpetrator's gruesome hiding place in an abandoned mine is discovered, the investigation gets closer to the killer while the killer gets closer to the investigators. Then, seizing upon a disturbance during which Paul is wounded, Eileen disappears. Going after his wife, Roy eventually confronts the abductor—whose identity has been cleverly hidden—in a claustrophobic, chilling climax beneath the desert. A solid, satisfying read.

Pub Date: July 22, 1994

ISBN: 0-688-12641-3

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE THINGS WE DO WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING
by Philip Gerard

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PATRON SAINT OF DREAMS
by Philip Gerard

- BOOK REVIEW
SECRET SOLDIERS
by Philip Gerard

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.