A fast-paced mystery with plenty of action and colorful characters, hampered by a few unlikely coincidences.
In Marks’ (Dangerous Behavior, 2014, etc.) latest thriller, a detective investigates a wealthy real estate developer’s disappearance, and uncovers a mystery involving the man’s wife and a mysterious hit man.
Former East Harlem detective Neil Jericho moved to Montauk, Long Island, to escape a tragic, career-altering case and to be near his ex-wife and daughter. He expected a prosaic life as a cop in the Hamptons, but instead, he becomes embroiled in a mysterious missing person case. Real estate mogul Burton “Burt” Lloyd Cascadden’s empire is on the verge of collapse. His plans to build a luxury waterfront apartment building in Brooklyn have been delayed due to a legal dispute; his funds are tied up in the project, and he’ll be ruined financially if he loses the lawsuit. At the same time, his marriage to his second wife, Susannah, is floundering, and he blames her for the “negative energy” affecting his finances. Burt hires a hit man named Mort to kill his wife, but before Mort can act, Burt disappears. Jericho catches the case, but his investigation is soon complicated by a second disappearance, as well as by his own growing attraction to Susannah. Does she know more than she’s admitting, and will she put his life in danger? Overall, this is a well-paced mystery; Marks provides his intriguing principal characters with solid backgrounds without lingering too long on irrelevant minutiae, and he puts the central mystery front and center from the start. The relationship between Jericho and Susannah gives the book a good, romantic spark. The whodunit initially seems straightforward, but it offers surprise twists that add further dimension to the characters. That said, the novel does suffer a bit from spotty editing; early in the novel, for example, Jericho mentions that his favorite charity, Doctors Without Borders, received the “Noble” Peace Prize, rather than the Nobel. Also, later in the story, Jericho rather conveniently appears at Susannah’s house right when she needs him, without ever explaining how he knew she was in danger.
A fast-paced mystery with plenty of action and colorful characters, hampered by a few unlikely coincidences.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990316107
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Top Tier Lit
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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SEEN & HEARD
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