A wonderful comic novel about an irrepressible hustler and the culture that spawns and sustains him, set in Guyana, by the Guyanese-born author whose prizewinning fiction includes The Armstrong Trilogy (1994) and The Shadow Bride (1995). In a flexible, lyrical style featuring delicious dialogue expressed in exuberant pidgin English (``Is why you in such a bad mood?''), Heath follows the fortunes of Kwaku Cholmondeley (``pronounce it Chumley''), a failed faith-healer with boundless confidence in his own intrinsic genius. Kwaku (the eponymous hero of an earlier novel) tries out a range of career possibilities, from selling ``antique'' chamber pots to tourists to performing more-or-less inept espionage duty for a scheming civil servant (later, the minister of Heath's title), the son of the only patient who ever believed that Kwaku did heal her. But in the end, he returns to his healing practice and prospers, surviving the enmity of his former patron and even the unnerving prospect of being (erroneously) linked to a scandalous murder. This colorful and beguiling fiction is further distinguished by Heath's flair for incidental comic invention (a dog named Armageddon, a woman who believes her dead husband's spirit has entered her parrot); by full and convincing characterizations of its several major figures (besides Kwaku himself there are, notably, his perceptive blind wife Miss Gwendoline, a crafty bigamist who intends to stand for Parliament, and a betrayed wife whose embrace of treachery and violence frees her from bitterness and depression); and any number of marvelously composed extended scenes. The best include Kwaku's hilarious ``fatherly'' conversation with his daughter's fiancÇ (a successful ``acute puncturist''), and a family conference called to discuss supporting an indigent in-law, in which Heath lays out the conflicting (unspoken) emotional undercurrents with consummate skill. A dramatic display of character in action that has seldom been matched by any contemporary novelist. On all counts, a triumph.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7145-3015-8
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Marion Boyars
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1996
A good beach read, set in a beach town.
A fast-paced novel about the enduring friendship of three young women who spent their summers in Avalon on the Jersey shore before dispersing across the country.
The book opens with Kate, now a lawyer in the girls’ original hometown of Philadelphia. Kate’s fiance, a man she met in law school, breaks up with her the same day she learns she is pregnant with their baby. Then we meet Vanessa, now living in New York City. Vanessa has given up her career as an art dealer in the city to raise her daughter Lucy and is struggling with her husband’s confession that he recently came close to cheating on her. Then we meet Dani, an aspiring novelist who has just lost her job in a bookstore in San Francisco. Dani is still dealing with drug and alcohol addictions and is still looking for Mr. Right. When the three decide to get together and spend the 4th of July holiday back in Avalon, they are each haunted by memories of Kate’s twin brother, Colin, who tragically drowned there eight years earlier when they were all on the cusp of adulthood. Woven into the mystery of Colin’s demise are other issues of childhood that influenced each of the young women. As they look back on the painful past and flirt with future opportunities, the women finally share the secrets they had kept all those years, forgive one another and prepare themselves to move on in positive ways.
A good beach read, set in a beach town.Pub Date: May 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-220381-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Natural storyteller Hunter knows the value of the occasional poignant scene to give his firefights breathing room. Not for a...
In the category of slam-bang, testosterone-laden, body-bag filling, hellzapoppin' potboilers, this is as good as it gets.
For those who may have wondered about the gene pool that helped produce master sniper Bob Lee Swagger, the author's demigod of a series hero (Time to Hunt, 1998, etc.), here's the tell-all prequel. Earl Swagger, valiant marine, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, is Bob Lee's demigod of a daddy. We also meet Bob Lee's brave and beautiful mama. It's the summer of 1946, and Hot Springs, Arkansas, is under the thumb of gangster Owney Maddox, who has a dream: he wants to refashion Hot Springs into an oasis of sin, a place where Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, et al., will feel safe, comfortable, and cosseted. He’s halfway there. On the surface Special Prosecutor Fred C. Becker doesn't seem much of a deterrent, but Becker has a dream too: he wants to be Arkansas's youngest governor ever. Moreover, he has a plan: to bring Owney down by recruiting and training an elite task force that can strike hard, fast, and ruthlessly. Earl Swagger—who better?—is charged with the training. At first, things go right. The recruits are eager and motivated. Aided by the element of surprise, they deliver a series of blows that shake the Maddox realm to its Sodom-like foundations. But then Maddox, with the whole of New York gangsterdom to draw from, recruits his own elite force. The stage is set for blood-drenched confrontations, during which lots of bad men are killed, some good men are betrayed, and Earl performs exactly the way Bob Lee's progenitor should.
Natural storyteller Hunter knows the value of the occasional poignant scene to give his firefights breathing room. Not for a minute to be taken seriously, but, all in all, a blast.Pub Date: July 3, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-86360-X
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
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