This occasionally well-crafted thriller shows its claws but is ultimately rendered toothless by hokey characters and disjointed plotlines. Were 40ish tough guy Roland Troy not so damn unassuming, he would appear preoccupied with being an enigma. During his life he has been scion to a huge fortune; college football hero; martial arts expert; crackerjack army jungle recon agent; homicide detective; cigar-chomping vegetarian; and, oh yes, loving father. But now his peaceful central Florida life has been disrupted by violence and turmoil. Former flame Clara Roseman has reentered Roland's world with a Cadillac full of trouble. Her son, Billy, an unlucky horse trainer, has been framed for the brutal murder of Nikki Waters, a smoky-voiced, sexually libertine deejay. It seems the apparently good-hearted Nikki was also quite naughty—she bedded down with a veritable cornucopia of no-gooders, including a smarmy presidential wannabe (who it happens is an old foe of Roland's) and a twisted newspaperwoman. She even killed horses in an insurance scam, just to make ends meet. Even with so many suspects, Nikki's peripatetic past conceals many of her misdeeds, which probably explains how Billy fell for her in the first place. Anyhow, Roland, as part of his promise to Clara, gets to sift through Billy's and Nikki's none-too-pleasant past lives in order to get to the bottom of this mess. Simply put, Billy is a patsy. He got played for a sucker in Nikki's equine insurance scheme, and in his scramble to make up for his losses, he got stuck in a blown drug deal in Mexico. But what Roland has to uncover is who set up Billy and why. Singerman (American Hero: The Red Adair Story, 1990) has devised many good characters. But hamstrung by Singerman's inability to knit his many—and sometimes excellent—elements into a solid story, readers may be nearly as confused as Roland.
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-13049-6
Page Count: 396
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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