An imaginative, if uneven, tale of carnage, angels and the hereafter.
Pike delivers a debut fantasy novel about a war in the afterlife.
Jericho is no stranger to life’s bleaker aspects, from his current job managing a graveyard to his former high-stress career as a surgeon. But when his daughter’s illness takes a turn for the worse, it drives him to suicide. It’s a decision that has lingering effects on the living—particularly Jericho’s ex-wife—but also on the world of the dead. The afterlife, it turns out, isn’t as straightforward as it used to be; a war between heaven and hell has left many lost souls eking out an existence in a shadowy netherworld. The devil’s hunter, Bathsheba, is bent on collecting souls to bring to hell—and she keeps her victims’ beating hearts in a small pouch. The sword-wielding angel Judas is one of the few figures who can stop her; he appears in the afterlife as a force for good and does all he can to protect innocent souls. Other afterlife figures take an interest in Jericho as the conflict ensues, including an unforgiving Archangel Michael and a Beethoven-loving Satan. Pike’s novel is sometimes gruesome (“At The Prince’s nod she sawed the blade back and forth across her tortured flesh until the shriveled pink tip of her breast was fully cut away and lying on the floor in a pool of her own sizzling blood”), but it does a fine job putting a new spin on familiar afterlife figures. The devil seems to appreciate human achievements, for example, and most of the angels don’t. However, the main character, Jericho, often gets lost in the narrative. Despite the fact that his personal life is marked by tragedy, readers may not find him very relatable, even after they learn that he loves to draw and that he cares for his daughter. In the end, it’s not quite enough to make his character truly memorable.
An imaginative, if uneven, tale of carnage, angels and the hereafter.Pub Date: July 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615745923
Page Count: 616
Publisher: 676 Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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