by Ross Poore Ryan Poore ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 22, 2013
An engaging though didactic tale of faith gone wrong.
The Poores, a father-son writing team, craft a novel that revolves around a murder investigation, though it’s more so an extensively researched exploration of religion and hate crimes.
One September morning in Utah, James gets the latest in a string of visits from Elder Lee and Elder Jenkins, a pair of Mormon missionaries. James’ revelation that he’s gay gets the missionaries to leave him alone. Lee says he thinks the world would be better off without homosexuals, and Jenkins calmly tries to rebuke him, reminding Lee, “They are still children of God and the Lord does love them.” The next morning, James’ partner finds him on the couch, his throat slashed. Detective Klingensmith is put on the case, and he can’t get the question out of his mind: “Why would a missionary commit murder?” To answer this question, he crisscrosses Utah and delves into some of the more obscure doctrines of the Church of Latter-day Saints, which the Poores back up with meticulous research and citations. In their preface, the authors write, “No religion wants the most outrageous atrocity in American history [the Mountain Meadows massacre, in which a Mormon militia slaughtered over 100 emigrants] shared with their adolescent members, especially the LDS church,” so readers might not expect a nuanced, fair portrait of Mormonism. Thankfully, though, most of the religion’s representatives here aren’t people who would wantonly kill gays. Still, it’s a bit hard to believe that a missionary would commit a heinous crime purely as a result of the intellectual motivations of his church, especially since Lee isn’t a terribly complex villain. Instead, the book—despite its solid, simple writing and quick pace, perfect for a crime novel—focuses too much on digging through Mormon history and theology. Though interesting, it falls short when readers might be looking for more realistic characters and less didacticism. Nevertheless, overall, it’s a captivating, thought-provoking read, willing to deal with tough questions about the roots of evil.
An engaging though didactic tale of faith gone wrong.Pub Date: March 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0985842109
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Patterson Crossroads
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996
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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