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Red Rain

Name: Red Rain
Author: Toby Neal
ISBN: 978-0-9967066-6-7

From the A Lei Crime Novel series , Vol. 11

by Toby Neal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Persistently riveting; should pique interest in the series’ follow-up—and the preceding 10.

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In Neal’s (Bone Hook, 2015, etc.) latest thriller, Hawaiian cop Sgt. Lei Texeira returns to find the killer of a child, while her husband, Lt. Michael Stevens, struggles to escape captivity in Central America.

Lei’s the type of woman who’d go alone to save her husband when she learns probable terrorists kidnapped Michael during his overseas stint training military troops. But Capt. Cherry Joy Omura can’t spare Lei, opting to immerse her in a case—a child’s skull washing ashore in Hana. Simply trying to locate where a local woman discovered the skull, however, quickly intensifies Lei’s investigation. She stumbles onto a marijuana farm, where a man uses children for slave labor and ensures they’re armed and willing to kill. Michael, meanwhile, is imprisoned in a pit with several others working for Security Solutions. The captors separate Michael when he gets sick, and he discovers their plans: if the company doesn’t pay a ransom soon, they’ll start killing the abductees. He manages to escape and free fellow contractors, but now the group must brave a largely unfamiliar jungle with the hopes of making it safely to Nicaragua. While Michael and the rest face crocodiles and venomous snakes, Lei dodges bullets and hunts a dangerous man who may have murdered a child. There’s not much mystery in the novel—Lei’s investigation essentially unravels on its own—but plenty of action and suspense. Neal’s writing is tenacious, highlighted by her masterly crosscutting of two exhilarating scenes: Michael’s group running through the Honduran forest and Lei fleeing armed men in the Maui jungle. Dramatic repercussions are equally solid, including Lei being upset that Michael told her his deployment date only the day before he left. Neal knows how to tease her previous novels with panache, like “that other trip,” Lei’s personal mission targeting an enemy on the Big Island, resulting in an apparently less than cheery outcome. The story finally reveals the kidnappers’ identities in the midst of a twist ending. It’s an unquestionably startling turn, but while Neal keeps it sensible, the climax isn’t as strong as its lead-up and will likely disappoint some readers.

Persistently riveting; should pique interest in the series’ follow-up—and the preceding 10.

Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9967066-6-7

Page Count: 276

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.