The immensely prolific and thoroughly reliable McCutchan continues his WW II convoy saga with a sixth adventure for Commodore Kemp (Convoy of Fear, etc.). John Mason Kemp is the senior captain of a steamship line who, in peacetime, commanded UK-to-Australia cruises; but now he's been made a convoy commodore, the officer in charge of non-naval ships bringing troops and supplies to a besieged Great Britain. Sailing in his former command Aurelian Star, Kemp's present charge is to sail from Ceylon with supplies and then to pick up native troops, German POWs, and a handful of colonial refugees from an East African port, all for delivery in Liverpool. As usual, there'll be packs of Nazi U-boats in both the Indian and Atlantic oceans, but on this trip there'll also be the threat of a German heavy cruiser. Kemp's naval escorts will protect the convoy as best they can, but they won't be able to make the whole trip. Kemp will have to pray for the timely arrival of a battleship from home once he gets to the dangers of the North Atlantic. In addition to the German navy, the commodore is plagued by worries about his sailor sons and by the half-mad Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton, who gave him so much trouble in the last Convoy novel. Among the passengers on this trip are a frail, retired army couple, a civilian lush, and a woman who is no better than she should be. Below decks, Petty Officer Ramm worries about his wife and sweetheart running into each other back home; Petty Officer Chatfield stews about his young wife and the anonymous letters he's been getting; and Seaman Biggar worries that Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton will recognize him as his accidental assailant on a boozy liberty. As always, McCutchan runs a tight ship.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-08168-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992
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
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