A light read for fans of female-driven mysteries.
In Kale’s (Harm, 2014, etc.) novel, the first in a series, astrologer Morgan Sterling’s delicately balanced routine gets shaken up when a charming detective solicits her professional help solving a cold kidnapping case.
At 32, Morgan Sterling has just managed to put the pieces of her life back in place after an undisclosed tragic event left her without her baby and husband. Although Morgan lacks the psychic gift bestowed upon the previous three generations of women in her family, she’s a moderately successful astrologer with a practice enriched by graduate-level education in psychology. She spells out how astrology informs her inferences about people: of her neighbor, Morgan thinks, “He had a Pisces Sun and an Aries Moon, a difficult combination. He was sympathetic yet pushy.” Regardless of whether the reader subscribes to astrology, these inferences peppered throughout provide a quick, dynamic picture of each character. Detective Daniel Kane, an astrology skeptic, asks for Morgan’s help at the behest of his sister, who happens to be Morgan’s best friend. Daniel is an on-probation detective with a tumultuous love life to match, seeking to both right a past wrong and gain professional respect by solving a seemingly uncrackable kidnapping. For Morgan, the case offers an opportunity to live up to the success of her esteemed mother. The kidnapping victim in question is the baby of a beautiful former cheerleader and a self-made grocery store chain mogul from Mexico. Other somewhat far-fetched characters in the case include a trainer dubbed “Exercise Barbie” by Morgan, a meathead named Boris, and the nanny’s shady ex-convict brother. Morgan is a well-developed character, though, internally struggling between self-doubt and determination to prove her merit. The mystery gradually fades into the background behind an unlikely romance between the astrologer and skeptical detective, another version of the handsome, winsome man unexpectedly choosing plain Jane. Fortunately, Kale manages to keep the romance, though a bit cliché, from becoming overly saccharine.
A light read for fans of female-driven mysteries.Pub Date: March 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9836866-8-2
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Pollux Press
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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