Thoroughly engrossing, both the investigators and their investigations.
An uncle-nephew private eye team takes on dual cases involving the rape of a 17-year-old girl and a probable murder in this second volume of a mystery series.
The newest client for Dallas private investigators Jack Crocker and his sister’s ex-Marine son, Jimmy McGuire, is Ben Rogers, insurance company CFO. Ben wants to hire the gumshoes to find the McMillan University students who raped his teen daughter, Robyn, at a campus party. Cops and campus security have been no help, and Robyn, scared and withdrawn, offers scarce details on her assailants. Moreover, someone’s taunting her by sending videos and photos of her attack that disappear seconds later. Before they can make headway, Jack and Jimmy catch another case: Pastor J.D. Finley’s convinced his brotherly cousin Jackson Parks’ death wasn’t an accidental overdose or suicide, but murder instead. Oddly enough, an assistant district attorney who’s also died mysteriously was second chair for a decades-old murder trial on which Jackson was the sole black juror. And just out of prison is the man wrongfully convicted of said crime, perhaps craving retribution. The detectives alternate between the cases, determined to stop the rapists from hurting anyone else, as well as someone on a potential killing spree. Langer (Hide & Seek, 2014, etc.) deftly weaves the two cases, with Jack and Jimmy moving between them with interrogations, research, and stakeouts. The story wisely focuses a bit more on Robyn’s assault, with ample coverage of how the teen and her family are affected. Ben’s rage, for one, may add too much fuel to an already tense situation, and Robyn contemplates seeking no justice as a way to move past her trauma. The teen’s plot alone could have carried the entire thriller, but the risk factor’s boosted considerably with the likelihood of a killer on the loose. Meanwhile, the curious detectives, who live and work together, have contrasting personal lives: Jack tries repairing his relationship with his estranged wife, Crystal, while Jimmy’s hoping for a fresh romance.
Thoroughly engrossing, both the investigators and their investigations.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-81684-4
Page Count: 364
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2017
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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