Poe, a distant relative of Edgar Allan, follows up his debut psychological thriller, Return to the House of Usher (1996), with another variation on a classic Poe story, again set in Crowley Creek, Virginia. Returning as protagonist is John Charles Poe, also a distant relative of Edgar Allan, who writes a ``barely syndicated'' column for Fannie Boynton's Crowley Creek Sentinel and who's inherited a brassbound oak casket bearing the papers of the great dead writer. It appears that Margaret Cully, the wife of the veterinarian, has vanished under mysterious circumstances; Julie Noir, a waifish raven-haired girl with a tiny gold stud in her nose, shows up and quickly replaces Margaret in Dr. Cully's clinic; and John Charles seems to be haunted by a small black shape that follows him around. Julie, who carries her black cat Asmodeus about on her shoulder, advertises the fact that she fancies herself a witch. After John Charles helps Dr. Cully deliver a two-headed calf (in the best scene here), the bad omens begin piling up. When Poe's story of ``The Black Cat'' seems to be coming to pass in Dr. Cully's own person, John Charles opens his cache of Poe letters and notes, looking for insight. Julie holds moonlit rites and dances naked, and the Reverend Rollie Fairchild whips up the town's antiwitch fever. Finally, Julie discovers a buried ax, seemingly having the missing Margaret's hair and blood on it. A town meeting is called, and some demand that Julie be arrested—or at least run out of Crowley Creek. (The town's rabid feelings are the plot's most feeble device.) Then Dr. Cully starts hearing rats in his cellar behind a freshly bricked wall. John Charles has a drinking habit meant to mimic Poe's, but Poe had an allergy to, not a craving for, alcohol. Gentlemanly, undemanding variation on the master's work.
Pub Date: Nov. 13, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-86013-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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