Thoughtful and exciting—another fine mystery from Horn.
In this second outing of a strong mystery series, a nursing home murder sparks an investigation into the past of a former circus wrestler and Olympian.
Eight years after the events in The Pumpkin Eater (2013), it’s 2007, and Sam Dawson is still photographing old cemeteries for coffee-table books, this time focusing on Deep Lake, Minnesota. When he arrives with his vintage Airstream, he decides to take his dog to visit the Whispering Pines Care Center and perhaps snap some photos of residents (he’s getting bored with cemeteries). But Aimee Pond, the nursing supervisor, is thornily unfriendly, and the local sheriff is more so, particularly after an old woman is found murdered at the nursing home, putting Sam under suspicion. Interspersed with the 2007 story are flashbacks jumping back and forth through the memories of Whispering Pines resident Hans Gottlieb, who’s nearly 100 years old. Hans’ son Will knows almost nothing of his father’s life except that he worked on the railroad. But Hans has many secrets, including having been a champion athlete and masked carnival wrestler. His curiosity piqued by the mysteries swirling around Deep Lake, and for his own sake, Sam must find answers while also settling the question of what to do next professionally. Horn, in his third novel, again demonstrates the intelligence and complexity of the first Sam Dawson mystery, elevating the story beyond the usual detective business of clues, evidence, hidden connections, and suspects. Many pieces do fall into place at last but more for the reader than for Sam. An intriguing theme pervades the novel: the impossibility of truly reconstructing the pasts of those who become lost to us through time or dementia. Even our own parents are essentially opaque: “At best, we only see glimpses of who they really were,” Aimee says. Added to this is our desire to be deceived, which the carnival scenes colorfully illuminate. Horn’s characterization goes deep, and he paces events well, saving some surprising revelations for the end.
Thoughtful and exciting—another fine mystery from Horn.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9835894-5-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: Granite Peak Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
