Sometimes slow but always well-written and full of detail.
In this novel, based in part on the author’s legal experiences, a lawyer goes after two crooked doctors who have been performing unnecessary surgeries at a small-town hospital in Tennessee.
Doctors English and Herman have a good scam going. Herman informs patients that they need to have their gall bladders removed, then refers the patients to English, who performs the surgeries. Both doctors get paid handsomely, and the patients never realize there wasn’t anything wrong with their gall bladders in the first place. Things are going well until Dr. Patel, an osteopath at the hospital, wonders why a patient of English and Herman’s isn’t being sent to a bigger hospital, even though the patient’s rapidly deteriorating condition clearly suggests she should. Herman’s refusal to move her causes Patel to suspect he’s covering up something, but when Patel raises an objection with hospital administration, she quickly finds herself out of a job. When she talks to a lawyer, other cases come to light and eventually find their way to Benjamin Davis, an aggressive former Brooklynite now practicing law in Nashville. But English and Herman have assembled an impressive legal team of their own; someone on the defense side has even hired thugs to intimidate Davis, so he and his team face considerable effort—and danger—as they work tirelessly in their pursuit of justice. Written in crisp, clear prose, Turk’s debut novel is rich with legal detail. Sometimes, those details are a bit too rich, as the courtroom scenes seem to include every motion, question, instruction to the jury, etc. While fascinating from a legal perspective, these details cause pacing issues and, at times, drag the narrative to a crawl. The subplot involving the thugs who terrorize Davis and his team feels tacked on, and it never properly resolves. However, the quality of the writing coupled with the insider’s view of the cases—Turk is a retired attorney, and the novel is based on actual cases from his career—mostly make up for these shortfalls.
Sometimes slow but always well-written and full of detail.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9892663-0-7
Page Count: 375
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
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
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