Though Artie Cohen, that handsome devil, is no longer a cop (see the series debut, Red Hot Blues, 1998), sleuthing remains meat and drink to him. His friends know that, and it’s at least part of the reason they think of him first whenever they’re in trouble. A case in point is certainly Hillel Abramsky: Hillel’s current trouble is stretched out on the floor of his office—in the form of a very dead Chinese girl. And no, Artie, he can’t dial 911 because, well, he just can’t. Subsequently, Artie discovers that Hillel’s no-account brother Sherman, up to his usual no-goodnik tricks, is the inhibiting factor. But by that time Artie’s deep into an investigation that takes him all over Chinatown and eventually to Hong Kong—on the trail of a world-class villain called the Debt Collector. It’s an investigation that involves exotic drugs (the “Hot Poppies” of the title), pornography, a brutal baby-racket, and a miscellany of nefarious activities. It also involves Artie (to whom womanizing is the stuff of ritual) with a diversity of stunning ladies, all eager to bed him. Among the males he meets, on the other hand, the inclination is to bash him, a thing that happens with some regularity. In Hong Kong, Artie bumps into old friends, confronts new enemies, and at last catches up with the Debt Collector, whose identity is a shocker—to him at least. A mishmash of a plot, redeemed every 30 pages or so by the introduction of some colorful character or another. But color Artie himself a pale imitation, and with him at the series center, the center does not hold.
Pub Date: Feb. 9, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-19986-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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
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