Not a Nero Wolfe yarn, but tale of murders in Wyoming involving two girls, lawyers, family scandal, political manoeuvres and a divorcee out for no good. Good pace, romance of one girl, but sprawly police investigation. Medium.
Pub Date: July 27, 1939
ISBN: 0553258796
Page Count: 147
Publisher: Farrar & Rinehart
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1939
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hoag continues to exploit the theme of mutilated women (A Thin Dark Line, 1997, etc.) in a romance thriller about the hunt for a serial killer. Someone in Minneapolis is tying down women, then raping, torturing, and killing them. While they’re still alive, the attacker sticks knives into the soles of their feet, then cuts off their nipples and aureoles. After they die, he stabs them in a ritual pattern, slices off their tattoos, and burns their bodies beyond recognition; to relive his moments of triumph, he audiotapes their screams for mercy and death. He’s the “Cremator”: just another “sadistic sexual serial killer” with low self-esteem and an abused childhood behind him. His first two victims are prostitutes, but when he turns his hand to Jillian Bondurant, the daughter of a billionaire, Minnesota calls in FBI agent John Quinn, world-famous expert on serial killers and related ilk. In the Twin Cities, Quinn is reunited with his ex-lover Kate Conlan, a former FBI expert in violent crime and the only woman he could ever really love. After the death of her daughter and a bitter divorce, Kate has moved to Minnesota and become a victim- and witness- advocate. In that capacity, she’s assigned to watch over Angie DiMarco, a runaway teenager who spied the Cremator while she was turning a trick in the park. As lots of tawdry details are dug up about Jillian (incest, etc.), the killer tortures and murders another woman, kills a small dog (in romance, always a sign of irredeemable evil), then begins to plot against Kate herself. Hoag’s strong dose of S&M resolves in fire, blood, stabbings, and Kate spread-eagled on a table. Though Hoag grows more and more adept at juggling a complex plot, her sort of violent entertainment isn—t for everyone.
Pub Date: March 9, 1999
ISBN: 0-553-10633-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
A forced effort to leverage interest around the legendary Chelsea Hotel, this novel is a miss.
Perennial Broadway understudy Hazel Ripley and center-stage bombshell Maxine Mead formed a close bond as performers touring with the USO during World War ll. Now that they’ve been home for five years, can their friendship survive the McCarthy-era witch hunt for Communists in show business?
Davis (The Masterpiece, 2018, etc.) has built her brand crafting historical fiction set at New York landmarks like the Barbizon Hotel, the Dakota apartment building, and Grand Central Terminal. Now readers are taken behind the doors of the storied Chelsea Hotel, a creative oasis for artists and freethinkers, as Hazel and Maxine try to navigate the Broadway theater scene. While Hazel has never enjoyed success onstage, she discovers a talent for playwriting and directing. Her career is off to a promising start, especially since bestie Maxine has agreed to use her star power as a box office draw for Hazel’s show. Their drama unfolds offstage when both women are named on a list of Communist sympathizers and must testify about suspected anti-American activities. With a high-stakes storyline that should be tension-filled, the novel unfortunately features prose that is expository and flat. Maxine’s diary confessionals fail to give any insight into her inner life and seem only to serve as information downloads. Even revelations that should shock evoke a tepid response, probably because the buildup has been so noncompelling. Thankfully, Hazel’s relationships—with everyone from her mother to a private investigator working in tandem with the FBI—are more engaging and complex. Notably absent from the cast list, though, is the Chelsea Hotel itself. In Davis’ previous novels, the setting plays an integral role in the storyline. Here, though, the sparse descriptions of the site seem to be almost an afterthought. Hazel and Maxine could have been living at a Holiday Inn and it would have had no effect on the telling.
A forced effort to leverage interest around the legendary Chelsea Hotel, this novel is a miss.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4458-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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