A haunting tale of personal sorrow wrapped in a dramatically potent mystery.
In Adams’ debut murder mystery, a woman struggles to cope with the death of her husband, and her need for therapeutic solace places a strain on her oldest friendship.
Kim Stone met Kevin when she was a freshman in college and quickly fell in love with him. They eventually married and planned to move from Baltimore to Boston, where he’d just secured a new job. But before they could do so, she found him shot to death, apparently the result of a brutally violent home invasion. Devastated by the sudden loss and stricken with grief-induced insomnia, Kim takes her mother’s advice and attends group therapy. Her childhood friend, Sharon, accompanies her to the sessions, merely to provide moral support. But then Sharon unexpectedly opens up about a youthful catastrophe that she’d kept a closely guarded secret for more than 30 years; in the aftermath of the tragedy, her father left the family, and her now-divorced mother emotionally abandoned her. But despite this breakthrough, Sharon soon grows tired of the therapy sessions, and Kim’s commitment to them starts to drive a wedge between the two friends. Meanwhile, the police have little success in their investigation of Kevin’s murder, but they share their suspicions that Kim’s father could be involved. Author Adams delicately braids two parallel storylines with marvelous concision; at fewer than 150 pages, this is a taut novella that’s both methodical and relentless as it moves toward its climactic conclusion. But it’s more than simply a murder mystery—it’s also a parable about transcending the spiritual torpor of loss, and the author writes poetically about the nature of heartache: “Grief can be deceptively comfortable, like falling asleep on the beach and realizing you stayed too long in the unforgiving sunlight.” Overall, Adams delivers a memorably affecting meditation on the toxic power of secrets.
A haunting tale of personal sorrow wrapped in a dramatically potent mystery.Pub Date: May 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5442-2401-5
Page Count: 132
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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