Newcomer Alderson develops a complex plot with real skill, though his laconic style removes the juiciness of a true...
Tough-talking lawyer investigates the disappearance of millions from a corporate account—and finds out what happened to her missing father.
Rosalind Wilcox is general counsel to a Washington, D.C., financial group, but she’s not exactly a typical attorney. Her take-no-prisoners style has earned her the respect of her male colleagues and the awe of her boss, Marshall Waverly, a southern gentleman who confesses his favorite kink to Rosalind one boozy night: he wants to be dominated by her. She’s only too happy to crack the whip, thus doing pretty much as she pleases at Rigel Associates and finding life not too boring among the suits. And the pay is good: “Sure, people lived and died, loved, hated, sought the Great Spirit, climbed mountains, wrote novels, structured leasebacks under Delaware law, accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, held AK-47’s aloft in the name of Allah—but only one thing really mattered: capital flow.” That’s something Rosalind learned from her father when he disappeared after being indicted for his involvement in financial scams and shady deals. Before that, she and her four sisters had led a charmed life in sleepy Zanesville, Ohio, although tomboy Rosalind raised a lot of hell when no one was looking and still yearns secretly for Drew Gillespie, the working-class sex god who taught her how to handle a gun and, uh, other things. Rosalind’s investigation reveals that her family’s past is about to catch up with her: years back, a Rigel partner got the firm’s start-up capital from her father, and it’s possible that pére is mixed up in their latest project, a pipeline in Colombia to be financed by a group of investors that includes a Schwarzeneggeresque heavy named Van Zyk. Rosalind calls on Drew to help her out, but—practical as always—beds him before the shooting starts.
Newcomer Alderson develops a complex plot with real skill, though his laconic style removes the juiciness of a true thriller. And the heroine’s matter-of-fact amorality and cynicism fall flat.Pub Date: March 6, 2001
ISBN: 0-7679-0657-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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