by Robert X. Burgess ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2014
Frank Fitzpatrick will lead this mystery series with ease, boasting the deductive skills of Philip Marlowe and the style of...
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A private eye travels to Las Vegas to find his missing friend and winds up investigating a murder in Burgess’ debut thriller, the first in a proposed series.
Frank Fitzpatrick leaves the beaches of Florida for the glitz of Vegas when Candy Vogel, wife of Arthur, a mathematician and Fitz’s former co-worker, tells the PI that her husband vanished three days ago. It doesn’t take long for Fitz to see something’s wrong: Arthur was uncharacteristically fascinated by an eccentric artist calling himself Zsa Zsa, whose paintings seem to Fitz a jumbled mess; and Arthur recently had a heated argument with Eliot Waxwell, an affluent man who’s been financing Zsa Zsa. Fitz doesn’t get much support from the local PD—he’s responsible for a few corrupt Vegas cops being sent away—but he’ll need all the help he can get, as his missing persons case turns into a murder investigation and is further complicated by the presence of Wang, a notable Chinese shipping mogul, as well as the FBI. Despite its contemporary setting, Burgess’ novel exhibits some of the traditional elements of a classic detective story: Fitz loves classic Hollywood films, still refers to comics as “the funnies,” and equates Candy with Marilyn Monroe and Maxine (Fitz’s erstwhile lover) with Jayne Mansfield. The narrative itself likewise recalls a pulpy dime novel: It dives immediately into the mystery and uses wordplay instead of cursing; e.g., more than one character tells Fitz to do something to himself that’s “anatomically impossible.” But the modern touches played against the conventional noir backdrop are what really set the book apart: Fitz uses a smartphone app to track someone and removes his cellphone’s battery to avoid anyone doing the same to him. And the disparities between Fitz and a classic sleuth give the protagonist much-needed distinction: He abhors cigarette smoke, doesn’t drink because he doesn’t like the taste of alcohol and prefers his Converse sneakers to “fancy shoes” that pinch his toes. The mystery isn’t hard to figure out, but there are copious suspects and red herrings, and readers will gladly join the charming PI as he diligently sifts through every one of them.
Frank Fitzpatrick will lead this mystery series with ease, boasting the deductive skills of Philip Marlowe and the style of James Bond in high tops.Pub Date: March 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615922812
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Lost Horizon Press
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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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
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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