An engaging tale with plenty of miscreants, sharp prose, and enjoyable characters.
In the second legal thriller in Reeve’s (All Good Things, 2018, etc.) series, drug dealers, corrupt cops, and a murder keep Seattle attorneys Jack Hart and Harmony Piper on their toes.
Jack is a lawyer at Piper, Whatcom & Hardcastle, as is Harmony, who’s still traumatized by the murder of her father, Humphrey Piper; later, she elects to work as an in-house attorney for Tokyo-based businessman Higuro Yamashita. Police officer Mark Oden, Jack’s former foster brother, has been working undercover in a heroin-distribution ring for the past three months, unbeknownst to Jack. Mark receives a call from his next-door neighbor Bobbie Ryan, whose husband, Garrett, has been abusing her. The next thing readers know, Garrett is dead, Bobbie is in shock, and Mark is found unconscious in the Ryan house with his service revolver in hand. A single bullet was fired from the gun—and it may be the one that ripped through Garrett’s head. Jack and Harmony are convinced that Mark has been framed, but by whom? The drug dealers? Mark’s father, who’s a drug kingpin in a separate organization? The police? Jack and Harmony are civil attorneys, so they must find an expert in criminal law to defend Mark. The section dealing with their search is like a short primer on what to look for in legal counsel—and what to avoid—when one’s life depends on it. Jack narrates this action-packed story, but Harmony proves to be the star of the courtroom scenes. This time around, Reeve develops Mark more fully as a character, and he and Harmony make a solid team for this continuing series. Betsy, a neurotic dog who followed Jack home last year—and never left—will be a special treat for canine aficionados. As Jack says succinctly, “there was something menacing about Betsy, as if she carried a rage that she might unleash at any moment. I loved her madly.” The twisty plot is satisfying but not overly complex. This entry works fine as a stand-alone, but it’s even better if one reads the previous book first.
An engaging tale with plenty of miscreants, sharp prose, and enjoyable characters.Pub Date: June 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-982940-71-3
Page Count: 255
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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