A powerfully written crime story of corruption and depravity.
A violent work of fiction set in the treacherous village of Foursquare, N.Y.
Teenager Stephen Laragia likes his reputation as “Mayor of Crazytown,” the epitome of a kid out of control; smoking marijuana and drinking too much suits him fine. Stephen has seen the worst in humanity—as a teen, a priest molested him repeatedly—and he enacts a plan to do something about it. First, he kills the priest; then, he kills his neighbor who’s raping his teenage daughter. (Those murders, along with lots of cursing and general wantonness, happen in just the first 40 pages.) After Stephen gets married, he finds his wife’s parents ruthlessly murdered. His internal debate rages through the rest of the book as he ponders how to exact revenge. Madrid’s (A Kiss Before I Die, 2013, etc.) novel quickly takes the reader down a very dark alley, and despite the novel’s brutality and sexuality, it’s hard to turn away from Foursquare’s complex, well-drawn characters. People and places start out likable, only to quickly turn dark and ugly—a noirish style that suits the story well. In one scene, Laragia attempts to strangle the man who purposefully drove his vehicle into his in-laws’ car: “The old man rose swiftly, towering over me, his throat cut and bleeding, the wire dangling from his neck. He saw my face and roared: a desperate, brutish yell, and as he wailed he thrust his elbows back and his hands seemed like talons, and in that light he seemed more monster than human.” Madrid has a raw, masculine writing style reminiscent of Fight Club (1996) author Chuck Palahniuk, and there’s both style and substance here, electrifying the pages with clever dialogue, dirty humor, smart character development and base humanity. If readers can keep calm amid the violence, they’ll walk away looking forward to Madrid’s next story—and wondering where he could possibly go next.
A powerfully written crime story of corruption and depravity.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 9781479360154
Page Count: 242
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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