by Stan Lynde ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2006
Satisfying western fare, in the vein of Louis L’Amour.
A young U.S. Marshal sorts out a culture clash with bullets and brains in this wild, winning western.
Things are too quiet for Deputy U.S. Marshal Merlin Fanshaw, a lanky young lawman cut from the Jimmy Stewart mold, who was first introduced in The Bodacious Kid (1995). Montana is just emerging from the bitterly harsh winter of 1886, and Dry Creek has been a remarkably uneventful place. When Fanshaw’s mentor, Chance Ridgeway, sends him on a mission to support a town marshal in faraway Medicine Lodge, he jumps at the chance for some action. Lynde–who was raised on the Crow Indian Reservation, where these fictional events unfold–has a great appreciation and sensitivity for the Native-American tribes in the area. He offers many compelling, perceptive insights into the minor war brewing between the county’s rich white men, represented by a corrupt cattle baron, and a band of renegade Crow Indians, led by the fierce warrior, Archie Young Bull. Keeping the peace is tough enough in a town full of side arms and whiskey, but Fanshaw’s troubles are multiplied when his partner, town marshal Jeff Brown, is framed for murder, and he falls for Bonnie Jo Hutchins, a widow who may have secrets to hide. The story is comprised of a comfortable, familiar mix of western Americana, cinematic gunfights and a little sex, but more importantly, the author creates a solid, believable character in Marshal Fanshaw. His pleasant, genuine narration, tinged with both wit and grit, carries the narrative, and the authenticity, country humor and vibrant characters all make for a warmly entertaining read.
Satisfying western fare, in the vein of Louis L’Amour.Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58348-464-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Stan Lynde
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 Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
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
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