The first book in the Cassie Cruise series.
Cassie Cruise is a private investigator trying to reinvent herself after being publicly humiliated on her PI reality show. Now the reluctant owner of a tattoo parlor, The Big Prick, Cassie is having a difficult time letting past habits rest—especially when she finds her car in flames and a dead body in the trunk. After being cleared as a suspect, she is warned to stay out of the investigation, but she won’t let it go—particularly after noticing her neighbor Lane’s boyfriend, Del, has the very same car, leading her to believe that the killer made a mistake. In an effort to gather intel, Cassie attempts to befriend Lane—and is even hired to find Lane’s long-lost father. As she digs deeper into her neighbor’s life, Cassie finds that Lane and Del are embroiled in a rather unpleasant, volatile situation with Del’s former assistant Crystal. Things take an even stranger turn when she learns that her own fiance, Vince, and Del’s mother are somehow wrapped up in all of it. When Cassie finally pulls on the right thread, things unravel in a way she never expected. Ellis’ debut novel introduces Cassie Cruise and her 70-something best friend, Janice, a tattoo artist with a secret. While Cassie comes across as flawed but likable, the few periphery characters—shop intern RJ, Detective Brick Winslow and Vince—don’t seem to do much more than hover over the page. Cassie’s new title of tattoo shop owner is more of an albatross than an outlet, which only causes her to pine that much harder for her investigative days. Despite valiant attempts to tie in the shop, it never finds much relevance within the story except to serve as a catalyst due to its silly, double-entendre moniker. However, in addition to having a female private eye, Ellis shows further creative flare in making the main protagonist’s sidekick an artistic, ethnic, active, septuagenarian, who will hopefully be taking a larger role in the next book.
A captivating introduction to a cozy female PI series with potential for wide appeal.
Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1626942141
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2014
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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