by Richard Montanari ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1995
A heavy-breathing debut thriller about a pair of sex-crazed serial killers and the lost-puppy cop who struggles to stay sober enough to nail them. Three young women with singles-bar habits have been found naked and dead in Cleveland motel rooms, their faces gaudily made up and strips of skin missing that once bore rose tatoos. Homicide detective Jack Paris has his hands full with alcohol and woman problems, but he's made head of the murder task force anyway. His hapless investigations include cruising the bars with pretty detective Cyndy Taggert; fielding calls from women who believe they've had run-ins with the handsome killer; and combing the city for fake mustaches like the one found tangled in one victim's hair. Meanwhile, a man who calls himself Pharaoh narrates occasional chapters detailing the seductions that precede the kills. The twist is, he's not acting alone: The murders are a uniquely bloody form of foreplay between Pharaoh and Saila, the woman he loves. The case seems closed when dandyish cop Tommy Raposo, a buddy of Paris's, is found with a bullet in his brain, a makeup kit in his car, and slices of skin in his freezer. Paris, however, is skeptical. Sure enough, his own 11-year-old daughter is kidnapped, and Saila puts Paris through a humiliating round of unpolicemanlike acts before she's brought to bay. Those hoping for illumination of the killers' pathology will be disappointed: A two-page chapter reveals that Saila's mother was a cosmetologist with a rose tatoo, and there's some hint that the singles-bar scene is lethally addictive, but that's it. Still, multiple depictions of sex games run amok will keep most readers turning the pages at a lively clip, and the killers' identities are a pleasingly slippery surprise. A lively, if inelegant, tour of the underbelly.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80357-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
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BOOK REVIEW
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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