Short but pleasantly enthusiastic, as a newbie works out his investigative kinks.
An Arizona reporter tries moving past his wife’s murder a year ago by becoming an amateur gumshoe and probing another killing in this debut mystery.
Eli Quinn took a lot of time off from his gig at the Arizona Republic to track down his wife Jess’ killer. With the murderer caught and convicted, Quinn likely won’t return to the job but isn’t sure what to do next. Former co-worker Samantha Marcos believes he has the resolve to make a laudable private eye and even suggests his first client. Delores Bernstein readily agrees to hire Quinn to find whomever murdered her retired husband, Tinker. There’d been a break-in at the Bernsteins’ home three days prior to someone shooting Tinker, but only a few items, like a PC and television, were missing. Valuable art, meanwhile, was inexplicably left behind. The sheriff suspects Delores, who doesn’t have an alibi, but Quinn looks into everything, including the possibility that a burglar wanted something from the computer. The just-out-of-the-box private detective gets help from Sam, cop pal Jack “Beach” Beachum, and his trusty German shepherd sidekick, Solo, formerly of the K-9 unit. Quinn’s investigation puts him in proximity to a few dubious individuals, and when one of them thinks he’s getting too nosy, he may have no choice but to put his taekwondo skills to use. Britt aptly utilizes his novella’s short length, launching Quinn’s murder case almost immediately. There’s a good amount of references to the protagonist’s layman status, like Beach recommending he file for a private eye license as soon as possible. At the same time, Quinn’s narrative often sports the hardened cynicism of a seasoned veteran: “Delores Bernstein didn’t kill her husband. I didn’t think. Can’t rule that out.” Solo nearly steals the story; he can intimidate with a single bark and a follow-up growl. But Sam’s a worthy supporting character, and romance between her and Quinn is nicely understated (and the year since Jess’ death is an appropriate waiting time for the private investigator). A small number of suspects unfortunately makes the murderer’s eventual unmasking somewhat predictable. Regardless, watching Quinn try to stop a killer is no less fun.
Short but pleasantly enthusiastic, as a newbie works out his investigative kinks.Pub Date: July 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9977614-1-2
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Ink Spot Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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