A dashing producer of TV documentaries battles to save his beloved Africa from callous international multimillionaires and home-grown villainous politicians—in a free-standing adventure from the author of the Africa-based Courtney sagas (Golden Fox, A Time to Die, etc.) and others. Smith's trademark big-hunter thrills, toned down to accommodate 90's sensibilities, keep things hopping for Rhodesian- born David Armstrong as he first documents Zimbabwe's thoughtful elephant management—and then avenges the death of Zimbabwe's best elephant-manager at the hands of ruthless ivory poachers. Armstrong, a one-time soldier who now turns out PBS-style nature films, just misses the slaughter of old colleague Johnny Nzou and family, but quickly deduces that Taiwan's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ning Cheng Gong, and his avaricious subcontinental ivory-agent, Chetti Singh, are the monsters behind the murders and the heist of a fortune in elephant teeth. Vowing to send Ning and Singh to their reward, Armstrong returns to London, where he picks up the backing of a bent billionaire and the assistance of a very capable, very randy camera person, meets a lovely scholar of Pygmy life, and then heads again to Africa. The grand confrontation with Singh and Ning takes place in Ubomo, a semi-democracy that has just been taken over by a rapacious army officer. Ubomo is also the home of the pretty Pygmy scholar. Humorless and politically only partially correct, but who cares? The point of a big African adventure is big adventure with big animals and big scenery, and that's all here. Smith knows the scene.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-40899-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
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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