Sometimes awkward but a satisfying synthesis of mystery, history, and emotion.
Thomson (Summon the Tiger, 2016) taps into the powerful emotional satisfaction that comes with solving a puzzle in this cozy mystery.
Maggie Fraser’s status as a fish out of water has served her well. After getting her business degree in Scotland, she moves to New York—far from her home and her well-meaning but overprotective family. She initially finds Manhattan inhospitable, but she meets and falls in love with Ben, a genuine, caring student who changes her outlook. Stilted dialogue somewhat undercuts the building chemistry and romance, but the warmth of the characters’ emotions nevertheless shines through: “I have always been interested in amazing structural designs, especially of ancient buildings. The arches with keystones. Flying buttresses and the strength seen in old, old structures that have allowed them to remain for hundreds, even thousands of years.” Despite concerns over where their respective careers might take them, they marry and find themselves in Italy, where Maggie is the happiest she’s ever been. Maggie’s life takes a harsh, strange turn when tragedy occurs, and she subsequently discovers a strange amulet. Investigating the relic’s origins takes her across the world and embroils her in a web of international intrigue that involves her family, friends, and confidants. It’s in these murky waters that Maggie begins to find herself, and in the unexpected sleuthing, she finds she’s not alone. Thomson’s prose is generally solid, but it sometimes resorts to telling rather than showing, even at the story’s most emotional moments: “She yanked her hands free and, crying uncontrollably, ran towards the stairs, towards her room. She was stopped by another policeman, who took her into his arms and hugged her strongly.” Nevertheless, the pacing is quick, and the element of travel provides rich backdrops and description. Readers will find the unfolding story charming and ultimately affirming.
Sometimes awkward but a satisfying synthesis of mystery, history, and emotion.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73284-891-7
Page Count: 299
Publisher: Quitt and Quinn
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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