Jettisoning the increasingly feeble mysteries that have been the weakest part of his recent thrillers (Stranger in Paradise,...
Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole ride (separately) into the western town of Resolution and deal with the trouble that instantly springs up to greet them.
Amos Wolfson, who owns the Blackfoot Saloon, has already lost several bouncers, one to a smartly placed bullet, when he offers the job to Everett Hitch. Hitch’s approach to the position doesn’t sound very ambitious. He sits night after night in the saloon with a shotgun, waiting to see what develops, and passing the time by adopting such a protective attitude toward local members of the oldest profession that Wolfson sneeringly calls him “Fucking Saint Everett of the Whores.” For all of Hitch’s sentimentality, his tactics are highly effective against Koy Wickman, the weaselly provocateur who works for copper-mine owner Eamon O’Malley. In no time at all Wickman’s been retired, buried and replaced by the fearsome twosome of Cato Tillson and Frank Rose. When Virgil Cole arrives and decides to throw in with his old friend (Appaloosa, 2005) once more, the stage seems set for a showdown between the two legendary pairs of gunslingers as they eye each other from the saloons they’ve signed on to keep orderly. But Parker, in a pleasing twist, allows all four to sidestep the turf war between Wolfson and O’Malley for the land and limited wealth of Resolution, and to join forces against Wolfson’s company store, which has been squeezing them dry. Cole calmly predicts that Wolfson will dismiss his inconveniently activist gunslingers only after he’s found replacements prepared to stand against them, and that’s exactly what happens.
Jettisoning the increasingly feeble mysteries that have been the weakest part of his recent thrillers (Stranger in Paradise, 2008, etc.), Parker focuses on what he does best—ritualistically clipped dialogue and manly posturing—and serves up a reminder of just how much hardboiled fiction owes the Western.Pub Date: June 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15504-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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