Grim first novel, a thriller set on a sunless island on Lake Superior peopled by stunted, duplicitous characters. Chuck left Madeline Island 20 years ago, under a cloud. Had he murdered his wild young wife, when he was a wild young draft- dodger, by driving her out onto the lake ice and letting the car slip through a thin patch? That's bad enough, but it's only part of the cloud over Chuck's head when he brings his new wife, Gretchen, and her smart-talking teenaged daughter, Kara, back to the island for a reading of his dad's will. On the ferry from the mainland to the island, the ferry captain blisteringly berates Chuck for returning to pick over his father's bones. Nobody, it seems, is happy to see Chuck. Meantime, a reading of the will shows that his father, Leo, was in fact the colossal bastard the whole island considered him. Yes, Leo says in his will, the money is gone, gone, gone. What money? Some $60,000 or so that Leo had collected from townsfolk and deposited in a Bahamian bank with promises of large profits for all. But, Leo avers, the bank sank. Sorry. The townspeople don't believe this and quite rightly think that Leo buried the loot. They want to tear his house to pieces. But the old man has left the house to his hard-drinking housekeeper, Mrs. Ford. When she dies, it will revert to Chuck, who can sell it if he wants and start a new life with Gretchen and Kara. Then, of course, the bodies start dropping—including that of Mrs. Ford—and Gretchen and Kara become ever more sure that Chuck is the perp. Should they flee . . . ? A hard, bloody tale, rendered with grisly accuracy. Young Kara, with her drill-boring teenage intelligence, steals the show here. All told, an assured performance that dims any desire to visit Lake Superior.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48430-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1996
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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