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
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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