The first book in The Venetian Chronicles, in which the prolific Elegant (Pacific Destiny, 1990; Mandarin, 1983) turns from previously favored Asia to Renaissance Italy and the glorious Republic of Venice in turbulent times, leaving much to be desired. Although ostensibly the story of the title character—a beautiful, strong-willed daughter of one of Venice's most noble families who flees her beloved city for Florence and marriage to a honey-tongued ne'er-do-well rather than agree to her father's plans for her—the emphasis here is more on the endless intrigues of state and the making and unmaking of alliances as the 16th-century Christian world maneuvers against the Muslim Ottoman Empire for control of the Mediterranean. Bianca's cousin Marco figures prominently, as the young sea-captain and trusted agent in the Venetian Secret Service rises through the ranks with valor and intelligence. While Marco engages in covert operations for the Republic, Bianca catches the eye of the Duke Regent of Florence, Francesco de' Medici, becoming his mistress and paving the way for a powerful alliance between the two cities. The two have a child who is promptly hidden from the prying eyes of Francesco's crown- covetous brother, but the boy soon dies under Marco's roof in Venice. Bianca and her Duke eventually marry, though their happiness and the stability of the alliance are undone by his assassination, just after Bianca gives birth to twins. These are safely smuggled out of Florence by Marco, by now one the most powerful men in Venice, and there the story ends. A disjointed tale, surprisingly inattentive to primary figures, but still able to provide impressive images of a colorful, fractious period. Ultimately more satisfying as history than as fiction.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 1-85619-112-5
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Sinclair-Stevenson/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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