In Dymond’s debut thriller, New York cops fight to bring a murderer to justice when the victim is a fellow officer’s sister.
The murder and mutilation of a Schenectady County woman unnerves local police. She was, after all, Officer Ed Roletti’s baby sister, Mary. Cops question friends and former boyfriends, but it’s evidence at the scene that narrows the suspects. Three of four sets of prints—the fourth unknown—lead to Ed and a couple of ex-lovers. With Capt. Jim Pollack refusing to believe Ed’s the killer and one ex in jail—that leaves only Chucky Dericardo. Some, like Detective Bill Watkins, aren’t convinced that Chucky’s their guy, but most at the police department see enough to justify arresting him for murder. District Attorney Franklin Dorey believes a conviction could improve his career prospects, but he’s understandably on edge when learning that Chucky hired notorious criminal defense lawyer John Upton. An ensuing trial, with no side dominating the other, ends with a jury’s decision, but it’s far from over. Seven years later, a SWAT raid uncovers something that causes everyone to reexamine Chucky’s case. What follows is a number of surprises, including another trial or two and more murder. The novel starts as a procedural before merging into a legal thriller. It’s a subdued mystery, thanks primarily to the plot’s hefty amount of realism. No incriminating clue, for example, points to a probable killer, and the arrest of Chucky is via process of elimination. Chucky, too, may be a viable suspect, but nothing ties him directly to the body. Told from multiple perspectives, there’s consequently no real protagonist; while a lack of viewpoint from Chucky keeps his guilt/innocence a secret but affords him no chance for sympathy. Female characters barely register, like Tammy Smith, sole woman in Jim’s unit, who disappears early. Nevertheless, the men are fascinating, particularly Bill, who obsessively counts his tie’s polka dots while watching the murder trial. And the ending, which wraps up everything, is bound to stick in readers’ heads.
Understated mystery concentrating on a morally ambiguous legal process—and riveting throughout.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9969677-2-3
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Chunky Pops Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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