An auspicious series starter that blends murder, bad medicine, and screwed-up family dynamics.
In Schwartz’s debut mystery, an amiable but flawed private investigator finds himself not only in the midst of two complex cases, but also dealing with a midlife crisis.
Former Mississippi policeman Jack Kendall is pushing 40, and all he has to show for his life is a struggling PI practice that specializes in cheating spouses, a dilapidated house, and a 10-year-old Toyota Camry. He’s never found Miss Right because he always pushes women away when the relationships become serious. As he explains to his best friend, Daniel Steinberg: “You know how I get. When she started talking about moving in together, I sent her packing.” Jack’s latest client is Teresa Lindsay, who suspects that her physician husband, Alan, is having an affair. Jack takes on more responsibilities after Daniel dies during elective surgery and an aggressive malpractice attorney, Cedric Johnson, urges Daniel’s widow, Christine, to sue the anesthesiologist. Jack was already planning to investigate Daniel’s death, but he’s also suspicious of the gold-digging lawyer: “No matter how he looked at it, it just seemed sleazy to approach Christine so soon after losing Daniel.” Neither case is as simple as it seems, as two illegitimate children, a spurned nephew, a dead child, and unethical medical experiments soon come into play. Schwartz skillfully weaves a complex mystery that keeps Jack and his helpers, including police captain Kevin Thomas; Johnson’s associate, Joshua “Josh” Royce; and Josh’s former assistant Stacy Young, in the dark for much of the story. He methodically doles out clues, however, so that readers will be likely to reach the solution before the professional and amateur detectives do. Schwartz fleshes out his characters well, making them believable and, in most cases, likable. Even Jack becomes a more evolved human by novel’s end, as he figures out what’s missing in his life. It all adds up to a fast-paced, challenging thriller that shows promise for future volumes of a planned series.
An auspicious series starter that blends murder, bad medicine, and screwed-up family dynamics.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9970965-0-7
Page Count: 398
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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