A harmless, sprightly whodunit featuring a captivating gumshoe.
Gripp (Pursuit of the Frog Prince, 2013), a former teacher and Florida Panhandle resident, presents the vibrant sequel to her debut mystery novel.
After skillfully foiling a malevolent kidnapping plot, amiable, “frog-eyed” detective Ben Burrows again finds himself ensuring the safety of the tony enclave of Amherst, New York. It’s Christmas night, and he’s assigned to investigate the death of Alice Beck, who has tragically fallen down the stairs in her home. Or was she pushed? Burrows immediately suspects Alice’s “cocky smart” husband, John, a smarmy stockbroker who he believes initiated a blundered kidnapping attempt on his wife some six months earlier. In that crime, local Amherst resident Peggy Roberts was mistakenly kidnapped instead of Alice by John’s confused henchmen. This time, Burrows believes John ensured the seamless murder of his wife. Gripp capably provides ample back story on the first botched crime attempt and thickens the plot as Burrows scavenges for sufficient evidence to convict John. Meanwhile, Peggy’s storyline satisfyingly continues on as she finds herself enamored with Seth, the romantically pessimistic half brother of one of her former kidnappers. As Burrows’ investigation of John intensifies with expected (and unexpected) developments, a few hard-won resolutions quell some interfamilial melodrama, and another corpse pops up, placing glamorous heiress and John’s confidante, Victoria Reynolds, in grave danger and in need of extra bodyguard protection...with romantic perks. All these events become enmeshed in the long-held animosity of two childhood friends, Cal and Sal, who were exiled to Ohio from their homes 26 years earlier for the attempted murder of one of their cousins. Sal seeks answers from Gwennie Damico, the love of his life who scorned him all those years ago; they rekindle their romance, yet both seem bent on settling the score with Sal’s family. Merging revenge, murder and steamy romance, Gripp’s narrative excels in character development but suffers from an excess of serpentine subplots. Thankfully, Gripp’s aptly named mystery is anchored by an engaging, honorable lead detective whom readers will surely find heroically endearing.
A harmless, sprightly whodunit featuring a captivating gumshoe.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0985939632
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Rachel Gripp
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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