A well-crafted suspense procedural with promise and potential.
A swiftly paced murder mystery anchored by two charming, hardworking detectives.
Cassie Maltos, a troubled teenage shoplifter with a rap sheet, has issues with just about every authority figure imaginable. When she and her mother are discovered murdered in their home, juvenile probation officers Christian Vargas and Daniel O’Callahan are immediately assigned to investigate the double homicide. Vargas has a personal stake in apprehending the vicious murderer: She’s spent years coaching Cassie to avoid the manipulations of her thuggish boyfriend, Tommy Calander, and focus on her singing talents and long-term goals. Although Cassie’s father, Jim, is initially a prime suspect, author O’Rorke (Always Another Dawn, 2000) ably provides a bevy of other possibilities, including a mysterious man involved in the meth trade. Vargas, who attends psychotherapy sessions to process her traumatic childhood, sleuths the case like a pro, tailing some Mustang auto-club members and a teenage truant named Lilly Host, who offers up Cassie’s diary for leads. The detectives soon end up at the Desert Evangelist Church, whose communicants speak in tongues and where Cassie was a member of the church youth group. It’s led by slimy minister Jason Roads, a man with a rap sheet for indecency. As Vargas and O’Callahan probe further, they find their own lives in jeopardy. O’Rorke, a Washington state–based mental health therapist specializing in high-risk teenagers, knows her mystery’s terrain well and brings her expertise to bear on the labyrinthine plot. She also stokes some much-needed romantic tension between Vargas and the handsome, soon-to-be-divorced O’Callahan; her new beau, Matt, livens things up further. Although the action culminates in a conclusion that some readers may find overly complicated, this inaugural entry in the author’s new mystery series is a creatively conceived, rousing whodunit.
A well-crafted suspense procedural with promise and potential.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615834733
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Torena O'Rorke
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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