Conventional ghost-story/romancer about a drifter who brings love, confusion, and, finally, a torrential downpour to an arid North Dakota burg. Long-haired, muscularly handsome Tom Keatley wanders from town to town paying for his next drink by winning $50 barroom bets that he has a psychic ability to make it rain. Alas, he's not very good at exploiting his talent, and, besides, he can't stay in one place too long before bad memories of his abusive father catch up with him. Karen Grange, a former compulsive shopper, is now trying to make amends for piling up a mountain of credit-card debt as the sole employee of an out-of-state bank. She can't bear to foreclose on another farm, but that's about all she's done since being transferred to the Badlands hamlet of Goodlands. Freak accidents and three years of drought have just about destroyed the town's agricultural economy. Of course, Karen—tall, darkly beautiful, and alienated from the heartland types around her—has no reason to suspect that the hideous corpse of a woman who's been dead for a century and who's been accidentally exhumed on Karen's property could possibly have anything to do with so much bad luck. Then, on an appropriately dusty day, Keatley arrives on her doorstep. Karen can't recall sending the letter that summoned him, but she pilfers funds from her bank to pay him a $2,500 deposit to end Goodlands' drought. Business and passion combine as Keatley discovers an evil spirit that possesses some of the town's inhabitants, and forces them to say ``ashes to ashes, dust to dust'' while they perform acts of mayhem. A few neighbors think the elimination of Keatley and Karen just might solve all their problems, forcing the story to a predictable storm-tossed climax. Canadian writer Moloney's second novel (but first to appear here) is a tepid Horse Whisperer rewrite using Stephen King conventions even too worn and weary for him. (Film rights to Paramount; Book-of-the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club selection; $350,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-31829-4
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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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