On the eve of visionary chemist Avery Stanton's retirement as chairman of the Stanton Technologies board, the news that his anointed successor has a long prison record sparks a confrontation that kills Stanton and leaves the question of his successor up for grabs. The two chief grabbers—Stanton's philandering son-in-law Ken Fairchild (Sales), and his abrasive rival Brian Redfern (Finance)- -are united for once in their determination to oust smooth economist/jailbird Adam Walsh. But Walsh, unimpressed by the puny buyout offers tendered by Stanton's chief counsel Colin Draggett, digs in, threatening to go public and send the value of Stanton stock plummeting unless he gets a $12 million handshake. As Redfern concocts phony company deals to get the down payment ready, things get soapier on the distaff side: Ken's long-suffering wife Barbara, the old man's daughter, catches her husband in flagrante; Brian's wife Fionna schemes to round up board votes for her man; and Colin, watching his beloved wife Joyce slowly dying, finds himself in bed with Barbara. Meantime, even as questions about Walsh pile up—if he never finished high school, how can an old Princeton friend be vouching for him, along with the wife who knew him from childhood?- -Colin, fearful that Stanton's crash could reduce him to poverty, tries to persuade board members to elect a caretaker candidate, and Brian plots secretly and ineptly to kill Walsh—first by hiring muscle, then by doing the job himself. None of the infighting matters in the end, and the tale winds down with a distinct air of ironic anticlimax. But while it lasts, Kiefer (Outlaw, The Perpignon Exchange, etc.) grabs you and doesn't let go. He's a much better grabber than his hapless executives.
Pub Date: May 27, 1992
ISBN: 1-55611-282-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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