by Sheppard Ferguson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 11, 2013
An uneven tale of the press, the Mafia, the CIA and unexpected consequences.
A photojournalist becomes an unlikely heroine in this action-packed crime novel.
While on a dinner date, Susan Kessel impulsively snaps some pictures of a quartet of fellow diners: a prominent banker, a Mafioso, an arms dealer and a CIA agent. They react with fury that their meeting has been documented and demand her negatives. In short order, she’s subjected to threats and intimidation—and, later, kidnapping, assault and attempted murder. This early part of the story moves swiftly and enjoyably, with its double identities, matters of national security and various thugs and ne’er-do-wells. The latter part, however, focuses on an unconvincing sexual subplot. It’s a twist that adds heat, but does so at the expense of credibility: A grieving widow flirts with a potential new sex partner mere hours after her husband’s death, and a woman on the run pauses to explore new fantasies. Kessel begins the story as an engaging, multifaceted character—an attractive woman struggling with her weight, and a workaholic in a male-dominated field. By the end, though, readers may find that she comes across as one-dimensional and unlikeable, as she risks the lives of adults and children alike. Her repeated triumphs over villains also may strain credulity; how many times can a photographer elude or overpower experienced criminals? Still, the author often deftly portrays characters in a few evocative strokes (“[T]he rugby player he may have been wouldn't have looked much different from the policeman he was”), and the dialogue is reasonably convincing throughout. The relationship between Kessel and her mentor at the newspaper feels particularly authentic and appealing. The story’s pacing is consistently good as well, until the conclusion, which comes rather abruptly.
An uneven tale of the press, the Mafia, the CIA and unexpected consequences.Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989334006
Page Count: 244
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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