Not quite in the class as Michael Shaara or Shelby Steele, but a solid work of historical fiction all the same.
Swift-moving fictional reconstruction of the terrible Overland Campaign of 1864, which must have seemed to its participants to be never ending.
“If historical fiction is properly done,” Peters notes in the Author’s Note that closes this novel, “it can bring history to life.” Following on his novel Cain at Gettysburg (2012), Peters picks up the story that properly begins with Lee’s rout and George Meade’s failure to pursue and destroy the Army of Northern Virginia. Instead, it was up to a different commander a year later, as Ulysses S. Grant moved in from the west to assume command of the Union Army and pursue that goal. As Peters makes clear, Grant, though not unreflective, was not shy about sacrificing vast numbers of soldiers: They could be replaced on the Northern side far more quickly than could their Southern counterparts. As Peters also makes clear, Grant was sensitive to the politics that affected his conduct of the war: If the South was not soon defeated, Lincoln might not be re-elected, and his successor might well declare peace and leave the Union asunder; if Grant were victorious, conversely, he had a bright political future ahead of him, which was one reason not to alienate the aforementioned Meade. Peters’ harrowing account begins and ends in the ocean of blood spilled between the Rappahannock and Cold Harbor. He writes with a fine balance of historical accuracy and drama, turning in telling portraits not just of the generals, but also of the privates from German farms and backwoods Appalachian huts who met and died on those Virginia battlefields. Occasionally, he is so swept up in events that his writing goes a little awry (“Grinning as wide as Galway Bay in the gloaming”), but more often it is right on the mark (“They had gone in a circle, blindfolded mules in a mill”).
Not quite in the class as Michael Shaara or Shelby Steele, but a solid work of historical fiction all the same.Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3048-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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