Civilized entertainments redolent of bygone days.
From Canning (1911–86), best noted for hard-nosed thrillers like The Rainbird Pattern (1973), come two dozen stories, most no bigger than petit fours, from 1956 through 1965.
The tales fall into three groups. The first five deal with members of the Minerva Club, a gentleman’s club for convicted criminals. The best of these, “Three Heads Are Better Than One,” describes the efforts of the three Head brothers to steal appropriate gifts for their sister’s wedding. The following seven stories feature France’s Department of Patterns, whose members, under Papa Alphonse Grand, seek patterns among apparently random crimes and try to decode them. Especially clever are “Nine Little Fishermen,” which links a series of deaths to a drowning accident in 1950; “Tattoo Pattern,” which traces the fates of three mates tattooed with portraits of the Three Musketeers; and “The Chicken Breast Pattern,” which crams an impressive amount of ratiocination into its account of a truck hijacker who steals only frozen chicken breasts. The most original stories, and by far the shortest, are the 12 starring Dr. Lin Kang, a con man who spends his early years as an escape artist constantly marked for death and just as constantly eluding it, usually by putting someone else on the spot. Even when Kang turns into a more orthodox sleuth in “A Question of Tailoring” and “The Slasher Slips Up,” he retains an admirably sharp eye.
Civilized entertainments redolent of bygone days.Pub Date: April 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-932009-76-7
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Crippen & Landru
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
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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