Which murder would New York City chief of detectives Bert P. Farber least like to be investigating? The police commissioner's, of course. Especially when the commissioner was the old partner who leapfrogged him into his present job over the senior competition- -now his competitors for the commissioner's job, who would like nothing better than to hamstring his investigation. Not that there was any love lost between Bert and the late Harry Chapman, who told his partner the first night on patrol about his timetable for advancement: two years as patrolman while finishing law school, three years in the DA's office, then Congress, the commissioner's job, then senator or governor, then the big one. He'd still be well within his timetable if he hadn't been shot in the heart one snowy morning on Manhattan's Upper West Side. But Bert, once he gets over a serious case of the flashbacks (he and Harry had romanced the same two women, marrying each other's dates), wonders why Harry was jogging miles from his Greenwich Village home. Despite interference from his rivals for Harry's job, he soon finds a love nest unlocked by the key he snitched from Harry's corpse. But which of Harry's secret women killed him—the flight attendant, the Mafia princess, or the inevitable police wife? Bert has swiped both the key and the fatal bullet without logging them in, broken into Harry's office to steal his little black book, seized a stained suit of clothes without a warrant, and hidden in a ladies' room to interrogate a suspect while her lawyer waited back in his office. Given these breaches of procedure, what kind of case will the DA be able to make against the perp, and what will Bert's reputation, to say nothing of his chances for promotion, look like when the dust has settled? Not up to the level of Tainted Evidence (1993)—those long flashbacks, fueled by nothing more than a heap of dramatic irony, make the first half of the novel slow going. But once it builds up steam, a powerful portrait of a bulldog cop who doesn't even know himself why he won't let go.
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1994
ISBN: 0-316-17206-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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