A straightforward crime thriller with a few additional layers of powerful emotion.
A police detective pursues a dangerous gang leader in Jacob’s debut thriller.
A vicious beating puts Detective Angela Harwell on the hunt for Tyrone “T-Bone” Reed, a violent gangster who leads a crime syndicate known as the Family. Undeterred by the gangster’s infamous reputation, Harwell tries to track down the elusive figure, motivated in part by her relationship with the victim as well as her own past as a victim of domestic abuse. Meanwhile, T-Bone enlists his crew to help cover evidence of his crime, and as Harwell’s investigation furthers, his effort becomes deadly. Harwell receives unlikely help from one of Tyrone’s closest associates, Danny, a witness to the beating that brought to the surface long-harbored doubts about his involvement with the Family. Knowing that the only way to escape the Family and protect his family is to stop Tyrone, Danny teams up with Harwell and DJ Sanders, a young Navy SEAL whose father was murdered by Tyrone. Recurring themes of abuse permeate the novel, most prominently in the protagonist’s childhood abuse and her subsequent work as a domestic violence detective. More subtly, interactions among Tyrone and his fellow gang members suggest the cyclical nature of abuse, a notion revealed in the vivid asides that frequently interject the narrative: “His childhood, and innocence, seemed hopelessly, unbearably distant. It was as if he’d become an adult at age six, right around the time his father left.” The weighty nature of these themes can bog down the narrative’s drive, which, despite its quick unraveling, sometimes strays too close to melodrama. The novel might also feel unrealistic to those looking for a gritty, modern take on the genre. Nevertheless, the intense climax is befitting an action film.
A straightforward crime thriller with a few additional layers of powerful emotion.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5060-2907-8
Page Count: 276
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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