Take heart, California scofflaws, from this wily treatise on the art of beating traffic tickets.
The authors run TicketBust.com, an online consultancy that specializes in “Trial by Written Declaration,” a Californian court proceeding under which drivers plead with a judge by mail to dismiss or reduce their tickets. Having handled 30,000 such cases, they are bursting with tips on getting out of tickets for speeding, running reds, illegal lane changes and other moving violations. Tickets can be challenged, they note, by impeaching the policeman’s line of sight, alleging that the radar gun mistook the defendant for some other car or documenting obscured signage. Tickets from red-light cameras fall prey to countless technicalities; they are invalid if sufficient warning of the camera’s presence was not posted, if no evidence is presented that it was functioning properly or if the ticket was not mailed within 15 days. And there’s always good old lawyerly sophistry—yes, the cop saw you using your cell phone in the car, but how could he know whether you were texting someone (illegal) or just browsing the web (100 percent possibly legal, according to plausible readings of the relevant statute)? The authors’ main recommendation, though, is to pay them to write and process your Written Declaration. (They reprint samples of their work, bristling with ferocious legalese: “[I]f the People wish to convict me of violating a signal, it is their duty pursuant to VC§ 21455.5 (c)(2)(C) to first establish that the signal was installed and operating according to the law.”) Organizationally, the book is an 18-car pile-up; Miller and Vega simply downloaded the contents of their website and blog in no discernible order, with some passages repeated several times. Still, it’s a lucid browse that makes up for its promotional slant and jumbled structure with lots of detailed, useful advice on navigating the legal system, presented in straightforward laymen’s terms. An informative, readable primer on the rules—and ruses—of the road.
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-615551821
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Steven F. Miller
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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High-stakes weepmeister Sparks (A Walk to Remember, 1999, etc.) opts for a happy ending his fourth time out. His writing has improved—though it's still the equivalent of paint-by-numbers—and he makes use this time of at least a vestige of credible psychology.
That vestige involves the deep dark secret—it has something to do with his father's death when son Taylor was nine—that haunts kind, good 36-year-old local contractor Taylor McAden and makes him withdraw from relationships whenever they start getting serious enough to maybe get permanent. He's done this twice before, and now he does it again with pretty and sweet single mother Denise Holton, age 29, who's moved from Atlanta to Taylor's town of Edenton, North Carolina, in order to devote her time more fully to training her four-year-old son Kyle to overcome the peculiar impediment he has that keeps him from achieving normal language acquisition. Okay? When Denise has a car accident in a bad storm, she's rescued by volunteer fireman Taylor—who also rescues little Kyle after he wanders away from his injured mom in the storm. Love blooms in the weeks that follow—until Taylor suddenly begins putting on the brakes. What is it that holds him back, when there just isn't any question but that he loves Denise and vice versa-not to mention that he's "great" with Kyle, just like a father? It will require a couple of near-death experiences (as fireman Taylor bravely risks his life to save others); emotional steadiness from the intelligent, good, true Denise; and the terrible death of a dear and devoted friend before Taylor will come to the point at last of confiding to Denise the terrible memory of how his father died—and the guilt that's been its legacy to Taylor. The psychological dam broken, love will at last be able to flow.
More Hallmarkiana, from a shameless expert in the genre.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2000
ISBN: 0-446-52550-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
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Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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SEEN & HEARD
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