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MACHINE

What if an eminent psychiatrist—in order to get a closer look inside the mind of his showcase psychopathic patient—used a gizmo he'd cooked up at home to introject his own mind into the patient's body, while the patient, finding his own mind transferred to the psychiatrist's body, took off on a rampage? The idea isn't as new as it sounds—apart from the rough Jekyll/Hyde analogy, H.G. Wells published a closely similar story over 50 years ago—but Belletto's juiced it up with some psychological jargon, a 12-cylinder suspense plot, and some shocking misogyny. Michel Zyto, the patient, has a history of sexual violence, and his masquerade as the beloved bourgeois Dr. Marc Lecroix is punctuated by his violent fantasies concerning Marc's inoffensive wife Marie (who's pleased by the renewed attention she's getting from her erstwhile indifferent husband) and Marc's mistress, actress Marianne Matys (who continues to enjoy lovemaking with Marc even though he's locked inside the body of an escaped mental patient). The question of how to define the two men's identities as their minds adapt to their bodies and they protectively take on each other's habits as camouflage is an intriguing one—where does the body stop and the mind begin, and which one finally determines who you are?—but Belletto is less interested in such conundrums than in pitting his unlikely twins against each other, as Zyto uses his success in the masquerade to keep one step ahead of Marc, and Marc plays on Zyto's hypochondria to persuade him that he can't stay in Marc's body forever. Only the shrill climax and its somber epilogue, in which Marc survives the switch to face life after Zyto, mar the sleek, suspenseful, mindless battle of wits. And most readers, unless they've read Belletto's curious anti-thriller Eclipse (1990), will scarcely notice the muted ending.

Pub Date: Nov. 23, 1993

ISBN: 0-8021-1437-7

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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