An entertaining, immersive jaunt with a formidable protagonist.
In this short story, Keating’s (Reagan Country, 2018, etc.) recurring cleric Stephen Grant steps up to help a popular comic-book creator targeted by armed assailants.
Grant, the pastor at St. Mary’s Lutheran Church on New York’s Long Island, agrees to attend a locally held comics convention with assistant pastor Zack Charmichael. The first night of the event involves a lifetime achievement award ceremony for writer and artist Wes Jenkins, whose work Zack greatly admires. Zack and Stephen’s after-dinner encounter with Wes and his wife, Kelly, turns out to be fortuitous for everyone when Stephen, a former Navy SEAL and CIA operative, thwarts would-be killers brandishing shotguns. The attack may be a reaction to Wes’ recent article criticizing the comic industry’s leftist slant. Wes, who co-founded J&H Comic Publishing with Simon Huck, says that he just wants to tell good stories, but some have taken exception to his work’s apparent conservatism, sometimes expressed through biblical allegories. Protesters make their presence known during the con’s next two days. When kidnappers eventually abduct someone, Stephen is quickly on their trail, and he has plenty of help—a convention’s worth of superheroes. The series’ protagonist remains a man of action even though the story isn’t novel-length. This relatively short piece is lighter in tone than previous outings, due mainly to its concentration on the cheery setting. Keating respectfully portrays the con as a mostly enjoyable experience—even though Zack is the only true comic-book aficionado. The story’s point of view is unmistakably conservative, but it doesn’t portray some characters’ extreme views as being typical leftist beliefs. Despite the story’s brevity, it manages to flesh out new characters, such as Wes and Kelly, although the mystery isn’t too difficult to puzzle out. Much of the comedy is appropriate to the setting, as when people assume that the pastors’ clerical garments are costumes honoring the real-life comic-book series Preacher.
An entertaining, immersive jaunt with a formidable protagonist.Pub Date: June 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71888-161-7
Page Count: 82
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2018
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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