First-novelist Keech, Maryland's assistant attorney general, debuts with an antic, unsentimental urban folk tale offering genuine sociopolitical bite. Though in the midst of filing an important federal case, Sport Norris, acting chief attorney of Baltimore's Legal Assistance Society, agrees to help Charles Gage, an aging ex-alcoholic who's inherited a house from his late great-aunt. As it happens, this dwelling sits on waterfront property needed for a hush-hush condo complex backed by the city's top developers and officials. While speculators and the builder's operatives pressure Charles to sell out, Sport wages legal war against the Department of Public Welfare; for more than five years, this agency has been denying medical benefits to indigent applicants by arbitrarily assuming that their residences have basements that could yield supplemental income. Indeed, hard-core careerist Leonard Tynan, deputy director of welfare, has pangs of conscience that make it easier for him to work both sides of the street. Meanwhile, ambitious State Senator Sam (Slip) Slidell decides to ingratiate himself with the unions and joins forces with ex-nun Sister Elena, who displays an unsuspected flair for rabble-rousing on live TV. At the chaotic close, Sport settles the class-action lawsuit with Leonard; the ailing Charles makes a good deal for himself; and Slip (a better man for having loved and perhaps lost) goes on to enter the gubernatorial race. Newcomer Keech has a firm grasp of what drives upper-echelon bureaucrats, self-anointed do-gooders, media types, the monied classes, and uncivil servants, and an equally solid hold on political reality. All in all, then: an uncommonly entertaining municipal report.
Pub Date: April 28, 1995
ISBN: 1-880909-34-0
Page Count: 328
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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