Though Diehl never breaks new thriller-ground, he generally does a fine job of hoeing others' rows—from the cop-novel Sharky's Machine (1978) through the mob novel Hooligans (1984) and the Nazi- conspiracy novel 27 (1990). Here, in his strongest yarn in years, Diehl jumps on the legal-thriller bandwagon, with a nod to psychothrillers as well. Martin Vail is Chicago's hottest attorney, a prickly Wunderkind who's just won a $7.6 million lawsuit filed by a mobster against the county, city, and state. Area powerbrokers take vengeance by sticking Vail with the pro bono defense of angelic- looking Aaron Stampler, 19, found holding a bloody knife near the room where Chicago's ``saint'' of a bishop has been sliced into chopped meat. The case against Aaron looks airtight, especially with Vail's nemesis, high-powered Jane Venable (``She was just like Vail—no prisoners'') prosecuting. With his trusty team of assistants—Naomi, the beautiful black paralegal; the Judge, retired, who gives Vail bench-advice; boxer-turned-law-student Tommy Goodman—Vail works furiously on a defense, checking Aaron's background by sending Goodman to the boy's Kentucky hometown (where Goodman sleeps with Aaron's high-school teacher and learns that she'd slept often with Aaron). The first plot bombshell goes off when Goodman digs up a videotape of the bishop romping naked with four kids, including Aaron. The second goes off when the psychiatrist hired by Vail (who beds her) to question Aaron learns to her peril that Aaron suffers from a shocking mental disorder. And so the story goes, tick-tocking along, with clever, challenging courtroom scenes filling it out until the verdict arrives—and, with it, one last bombshell. A big, efficient thriller-machine—slick and melodramatic— with every cog whirring at top speed but with little Çlan vital. It'll make a great movie, though. (Film rights to Paramount)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-40211-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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