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THE MURDER OF ALBERT EINSTEIN

First-novelist Gitlin draws on his expertise as media critic and recent historian (Vertical Hold, 1983; The Sixties, 1987) to produce this tough-talking, savvy, but finally wearying thriller- -featuring an aging blond TV correspondent, the Sixties icon who radicalized her, and their frantic search for the man who murdered Einstein. Her Filofax crammed with commitments for televised interviews with rock stars, on-screen tàte-a-tàtes with elder statesmen, and live wrap-ups on her own TV news-magazine show, In Depth, burnt-out reporter Margo Ross can barely keep her eyes open, much less remember the wild and political 60's life she left behind. Nevertheless, she's not surprised to hear the voice of Sixties novelist Harry Kramer, her hero and mentor back when she was just a gofer on a New York underground rag, growling about a possible conspiracy over her office telephone in 1992. Kramer, whose own career is on a downhill slide, has uncovered evidence that Albert Einstein was murdered, on his deathbed, with an overdose of speed. Who would want to kill the most brilliant man of our century—even if he was a pacifist and it was 1955—particularly when he was near death anyway? Hungry for hard news, Ross joins Kramer in tracking down the answer among Einstein's former colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Physics, at the New York home of Einstein's hawkish nemesis, Gustav Janousek, in old newspaper reports on Einstein's developing Unified Field Theory, and at the Lower East Side apartment of Norman Gottehrer, an aging crank who as a youth basked in the light of Einstein's kind attention. Running against an impossible deadline and forced to fight for control of her story with a ratings-obsessed boss and the network's mega-mogul owner— who may be trying to protect some highly placed friends—Margo is run too ragged to realize who the real evildoer is. The conclusion comes as a satisfying surprise—though by then readers may be too exhausted by Ross's frantic, end-of-the-millennium lifestyle to care. A clever story, told at hyper-speed.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-374-21617-7

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1992

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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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