Primary Colors meets George V. Higgins in this tangy tale of Boston politics by a former Massachusetts governor who surely never saw any of this stuff himself. Nobody’s more surprised than Terrence Mullally when he’s tapped to challenge veteran Suffolk County D.A. Marty Gross in the all-important Democratic primary. Terry doesn’t have Gross’s experience or his connections—he’s an orphan only recently exiled to Beantown by a questionable immunization of his childhood mentor, Det. Sgt. Joseph Ballaster (“Joe Balls”), which got him chased out of the US Attorney’s office in Brooklyn—and he doesn—t have any compelling reason to run against him. What he does have is a practiced ease in addressing crowds of strangers, a bottomless supply of charm, and a demon campaign manager, Lanny Green, out of the AFL-CIO’s Washington office. The combination propels Terry through a series of amusingly interchangeable smokers (one of them kicked off by the line “Fellow designated drivers!”), strategy sessions, and ascensions to the haunts of some serious old money, where he meets Emma Gallaudette, whose money is neither old nor serious. Emma would be the perfect mate for Terry if she weren’t already married, but since her well-heeled, indifferent husband Elijah Low is away indefinitely in Hong Kong, she does fine as an imperfect mate, buoying Terry up till he’s chased Gross (and, in a finely anticlimactic sequence, his Republican opponent) from the scene and settled in to make a completely new set of enemies among local politicos, journalists, and suddenly unemployed Suffolk County prosecutors. And still it’s not enough for Terry, who can’t resist challenging an ineffectual Massachusetts senator for his seat. The inevitable reversal, which features Joe Balls’s buddy, NYPD Lt. Rudy Solano, and Elijah Low in darker roles, seems at first a lot more moralistic than it actually is. A torrent of lovely, nasty upstairs/downstairs chat, though the stop-and-go rhythm of the story and the thinness of characters who aren’t Terry reminds you that Weld, for all his rough-and-tumble expertise, is no Anonymous. (First serial to George)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-85346-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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