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WIZRD

First novel, filled with slow-building horror set in Arizona. A once booming center for gold mining, the ghost town of Pinon Rim, whose population a century ago faded overnight, has been reinvigorated by an arts colony. Among the newcomers to the colony are 14-year-old Bryce Willems, who lives with his painter father Trevor, Bryce's new stepmother, Cathleen, and his younger stepsister, Megan, whose poor eyes demand that she wear one black lens. Odd things suddenly are happening in Pinon Rim. A dog goes mad and makes a graveyard for dozens of small, bloody animals in its owner's front yard, and the owner also goes mad and tries to shoot the sheriff. But—is the dog mad or merely a stuffed, dead thing its owner only thinks is marauding? A ten-year-old Navajo boy is found drowned in the nearby creek, apparently having been caught in a flash flood on the reservation and then floated five miles to Pinon Rim. And at a place where no birds sing Meg has discovered a lost entrance to the WiZrd mine—a cave to which she takes Bryce for a rather creepy inspection. Meanwhile, a ghost child only Megan can see hangs around the schoolyard imploringly, and at times she has to cut her way through menacing older kids with an eight-inch knifeblade. It seems that a century ago all the children in Pinon Rim died, perhaps of diphtheria. Bryce in the meantime falls for Connie Bowman, whose family has a ghastly local history. Slowly, in fact, the town from a century ago comes to life, and Rose Bowman is again burned alive as a pariah and scapegoat. At the same time, an ancient blue-and-white force from the cave—the Wizard!—invades the living, and even Megan, Cathleen, and Trevor—like the mad dog- -are sucked empty by it. WELCOME TO HELL a torn banner cries on Front Street.... We've met this force before, but Zell's western motif adds freshness.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1994

ISBN: 0-312-10577-0

Page Count: 336

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1993

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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

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