Intriguing, but more a mission statement than a novel.
An empty-at-the-center ecothriller in which the disappearance, and then reappearance, of a boy in the town of Ithaca, New York, makes him a new messiah.
Harried single mother Molly Driscoll comes to pick up her four-year-old son Danny from his daycare center only to find that the center has absolutely no idea where he’s gone. Molly is at a loss, especially since Danny’s father abandoned her the day Danny was born and never showed any interest in him. And although the daycare center is run-down, and unruly kids are locked in a basement, the workers hardly seem kidnapping suspects. Detective Lou Tripoli, assigned to the case, is quickly at a loss for leads, and hope for Danny fades—though not before a desperate romance blossoms between distraught Molly and gruff but caring Tripoli. Then seven months later, Danny walks back into his mother’s trailer as coolly as he apparently walked out of the daycare center. He looks healthy and well, though refusing to say where he’s been or with whom. And it isn’t long before Molly notices great changes in him. He wants to be called “Daniel,” is disgusted by meat, hates fishing—previously his favorite hobby—is remarkably attuned to weather cycles, is sickened by any type of chemical smell, and has preternatural reading and comprehension abilities. Bit by bit, Tripoli and Molly divine that he must have lived with some bearded hermit who taught him the ways of the land, and now, back in the industrialized world, he has the aura of some sort of eco-Christ with a message. Soon, news of Daniel spreads and penitents flock—even as the weather turns radically for the worse. Lieberman (Baby, 1981, etc.) hits all the right environmental notes here, and there’s an ample amount of mystery, but his characters are never developed much beyond their reactions to Daniel—himself a cipher given to pronouncements like “Now they’re destroying our Earth.”
Intriguing, but more a mission statement than a novel.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-57071-943-8
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
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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