by Tom Pitts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 26, 2017
An absorbing and highly charged story of violent payback with considerable collateral damage.
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Ex-cops, killers, and junkies collide in and around San Francisco in this thriller.
In Pitts' (Knuckleball, 2017, etc.) novel, 20-year-old Steven suffers a brutal beating by men who steal his weed and leave him lying on gravel in the small town of Willits, California. Quinn McFetridge, a stranger, offers him a ride and a cigarette, but his motives aren’t altruistic. Just out of prison, he tricks Steven into helping him rescue a girl named Teresa, who he claims is his daughter, from living with a speed freak in San Francisco. En route to the city, the ex-con and Steven stop at a vineyard owned by someone Quinn calls an old friend; soon he’s a dead one. Cokehead and ex-cop Maurice Tremblay finds the vineyard owner with a puddle of blood “still growing around his body.” Tremblay discerns Quinn is the murderer. The two share a complicated back story, and for reasons yet unknown to the reader, they both want to find Teresa. Tremblay works for Ricardo Alvarez—aka Richard Allen, “a Mexican cartel guy, supposedly gone legit”—whose tentacles reach into San Francisco’s “City Hall and upward.” Widowed, retired cop Carl Bradley, assisting in finding the vintner’s killer, contacts some sources, and then he too heads to the city, looking for Quinn, Tremblay, and Teresa. Steven finds her among addicts in the Mission District. Frail-looking and bruised from shooting up, Teresa connects with Steven. They go on the run, especially from Quinn, who brutally murders anyone who can identify him. From here, the pace of the lively tale accelerates, and the reason why Teresa is hunted and the truth about her identity are revealed. The characters are well-defined: bored, lonely Carl, devoted to his dog, Buford; Quinn, with an appetite for steak and an appreciation of the power of a muscle car; and fleshy-cheeked Tremblay, a devotee of loose women and top-shelf liquor. The author’s attention to small details is a big plus—a mattress bends under Tremblay’s weight; a reporter’s eyeglasses look opaque with fingerprints—but identifying the make of every vehicle stolen or involved in a chase pockmarks the engrossing text.
An absorbing and highly charged story of violent payback with considerable collateral damage.Pub Date: June 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943402-84-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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