Frank Fitzpatrick will lead this mystery series with ease, boasting the deductive skills of Philip Marlowe and the style of...
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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