A novel about sex, murder, and conspiracy that lacks finesse, but delivers a wild ride.
A serial killer, the public shaming of an investigative reporter, and a secret bunker are just some of the spicy ingredients in this thriller.
In Philadelphia, a serial killer is murdering and mutilating preoperative transgender people, leaving each with a single white rose. One detective on the case is murdered; the other, Dennis Edwards, barely survives being thrown out of a window. Popular local TV reporter Pamela Downing looks into the case, although her life is threatened—and then a sex tape starring her airs as she’s receiving a Woman of the Year award. While she looks for answers (and learns she’s pregnant), her friend Bryce Haddaway, a TV producer, remains traumatized after his jealous boyfriend, Chad Singleton, beats and rapes him, putting Bryce in the hospital—and possibly infecting him with HIV. At the hospital, Bryce meets Stephanie, Chad’s pregnant wife, who flees upon seeing Chad. Fred, whose brother Hollis was pressured into airing Pamela’s sex tape, discovers that Hollis has been murdered, leaving him cash, DVDs of information, and keys to a huge fortified bunker. Pamela discovers that her husband, Eric, has cheated on her, impregnating her friend Olivia; Pamela informs Olivia’s husband. Pamela, who has dissociative identity disorder, switches to her alternate personality, Kendra, to investigate a strip club that might hold clues to the transgender murder victims and the sex tape release, and discovers a sinister conspiracy that includes a politician. Ginyard (Beneath the Surface, 2004) wrangles his convoluted plot well, keeping readers oriented to its twists and turns. There’s a nighttime soap-opera feel to his glamorous characters, both racially and sexually diverse, and their sassy, sexy, violent shenanigans. Nearly all of it is just too much to buy, though, with episodes like an escaped mental patient sawing off his doctor’s arm, or Bryce having happy sexual encounters with three different men the same day he’s raped. And the writing can be clumsy, sounding like a personal or real estate ad (“Commanding the top two floors of a residential tower situated between Society Hill and Old City, the unit boasted a pool terrace with an unobstructed 270-degree view of the city”).
A novel about sex, murder, and conspiracy that lacks finesse, but delivers a wild ride.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4575-4148-3
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Dog Ear
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
