Addicting characters and gadgets.
A man’s new Dallas PI business becomes personal when someone abducts a loved one in Langer’s (Personal Verdict, 2011) thriller.
Jack Crocker can’t cope with his PTSD from the Gulf War and his time in Iraq. His struggle with alcohol is the reason his wife, Crystal, is seeking a divorce, and it indirectly caused the accident that crippled his young son. Remedying his mistakes starts with opening C&M Investigations, a PI agency, with his nephew (and former Marine) Jimmy McGuire. At first, business is slow, but things heat up when Meredith Thomas, the personal assistant to the CEO at Templeton Corporation, hires the duo to sleuth out who tried to run her over in the company parking lot. It only escalates from there: Meredith seems to be hiding from someone dangerous, and an employee at Templeton Corporation turns up dead. Then one of Jack’s family members is kidnapped to warn him off the case; now Jack just needs to figure out which case. Though the mystery takes a while to begin (Meredith appears about one-third of the way in), Langer fully develops his cast. Jack and Jimmy, for example, swap stories: Jack tells of inadvertently injuring his son, while Jimmy recalls a horrific experience in Afghanistan. But the character development also helps set up the story for later, more suspenseful sequences, like Jack getting little help from local police when he needs it. The book ultimately leads to an exhilarating scene in which Jack and Jimmy track down the mysterious abductors, who not only threaten his family, but Meredith as well. There are also welcome lighter moments, especially Jimmy’s obsession with gadgets; he puts to good use a Batmobile-esque remote-controlled car mounted with cameras and a recording device disguised as a pen. Langer only falters with his editing, including giving different names and job titles for the same murder victim. The ending, complete with epilogue, offers a thorough resolution.
Addicting characters and gadgets.Pub Date: July 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692240434
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ralph\Langer
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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