Five years after he gets framed for killing streetcorner hustler Junior Obregon, and several hours after his waiting girlfriend Lottie Sonnier gets executed gangland style, ex-cop Israel Daggett, released from Angola, pulls back into New Orleans. Even before Iz finds out about Lottie's death, gangster Joe Dante's slant-eyed mistress Stella Bascomb is waiting at the train station to greet him with a bullet. Iz isn't the only one who wants to avenge Lottie's murder: Cafe Tristesse owner Wesley Farrell, still passing for white, and Club Moulin Rouge owner Savanna Beaulieu are out for the truth too. But Stella isn't alone in this eithershe shuttles between well-connected Dante and crooked ex-cop Walt Daggett, Iz's own cousin. When the two trinities lock hornsand that's pretty much all that happens in this violent, colorful 1938-set sequel to Skin Deep, Blood Red (1997)sparks fly. Iz gets shot at and attacked by a pair of thugs; Farrell gets shot at and dumped into the Mississippi; Savanna gets kidnapped and raped; and the body count goes through the roof. Skinner outdoes even Red Harvest and The Big Sleep in distributing corpses; it's hard enough to remember who's been killed, let alone who's still available to stand as suspects. The tensely textured hard-boiled milieu is practically the only survivor.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-57566-250-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
This Mann-esque German import, previously unpublished in English, takes readers on a lonely midnight walk without a map through crumbling foreign alleyways. Koeppen (Pigeons on the Grass, not reviewed) gives his postWW II narrative, a cross between domestic drama and fairy tale, four leading characters: Siegfried Pfaffrath, a composer; his father, Friedrich, the corrupt OberbÅrgermeister of their hometown; Friedrich's brother-in-law Gottlieb Judejahn, a former SS soldier; and Gottlieb's son Adolf, a priest. Estranged during the war, the four become reacquainted in Rome. Hofmann, who won a Times Literary Supplement prize in England for this translation, explains in his introduction that the characters are allegories as well as people (they represent music, bureaucracy, murder, and religion—four areas in which Germans have excelled), and that the text is a symbol as well as a story. Woe, then, to the lay reader without a background in German culture. A sense of alienation hangs over the text: The characters never seem able to penetrate one another's lives, and the prose is equally detached. The big family reunion is a case in point. Koeppen's staccato narrative brings the four protagonists together at Siegfried's concert, where they engage in about as much intimate contact as would pieces on a chessboard. The action occurs primarily in the characters' minds and memories. There are some vivid and disturbing depictions, especially that of Gottlieb, whose relationship to his family, women, and the heinous Third Reich is closely examined. Still obsessed with Jews, he forms a twisted attraction to a local barmaid who he suspects is Jewish. His plans to bed and destroy her are temporarily interrupted by Adolf's appearance and the discovery that she is Catholic, but his anger is rerouted to another outlet. Desolate, cold, cryptic.
Pub Date: Sept. 13, 1994
ISBN: 0-14-018790-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
A treasure trove of Victoriana, especially for foodies. More history than mystery but a truly delightful read.
A split-second decision is life-changing in this stand-alone Victorian-era mystery from Bowen (Love and Death Among the Cheetahs, 2019, etc.).
Isabella Waverly’s father is an aristocrat estranged from his family who’s fallen so far in the world that he sent his oldest daughter out to work as a servant at 15. Her only joy is learning to cook. When a girl is run over by an omnibus before her eyes, Bella automatically picks up an envelope the dead girl had been clutching. The envelope contains an invitation to apply for an under-cook position at Buckingham Palace that very day. Introducing herself as Helen Barton, Bella snags the job. She hides her new position from Louisa, the younger sister who’s marrying the son of a well-off family. She struggles to immerse herself in the persona of a girl from Yorkshire, explaining her upper-class accent by saying her father was a gentleman. The only fly in the ointment is the appearance of Helen’s brother, who blackmails her into finding a job for him, too. Bella’s passion for cooking and her work ethic soon endear her to the mostly male staff. Queen Victoria, who has an enormous appetite for rich foods, so enjoys Bella’s scones that she personally asks her to make them every day. When her majesty travels to Nice, Bella goes along and gets to put her knowledge of French to use. She develops a semiromantic friendship with the head chef at the hotel, which was built especially for the queen. Indeed, her life seems idyllic until Count Wilhelm, the betrothed of Princess Sophie, dies, ostensibly from a poisoned mushroom Bella bought in a local market. Now she must juggle cooking and a suddenly active love life as she searches for a way to end her predicament.
A treasure trove of Victoriana, especially for foodies. More history than mystery but a truly delightful read.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0825-9
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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