A gripping, brutal tale of revenge and devastation.
In the wake of the Civil War, a former Southern sheriff reluctantly chases a man bent on vicious, bloody retribution.
In Harms’ (Infamous Vol. 1, 2011) historical novel, Samuel Glazer is a man seeking revenge. He has a list of eight members of Bloody Bill’s gang, which rampaged through Missouri during the Civil War. Glazer’s wave of vengeance takes place in a South that has been decimated by the conflict; entire towns are ravaged, and people are scrounging to feed themselves. After the ruthless deaths of Harold Camp’s wife and son, Oliver Hansford, a wealthy man in Whitwell, Tennessee, forces Lee Sinclair, the ex-sheriff, to track down the murderer with two associates. Despite the misgivings of his wife, Kate, and his own doubts, Lee sets off with Eli and Bobby to hunt for the killer. Back in town, Kate is trying to survive with their son, Jeremiah, while fending off the advances of Hansford. On his journey, Glazer saves a black freeman named Joseph from being lynched and tries to protect him. After several encounters on the road, Lee realizes that Eli and Bobby are barbarous murderers and that he is not supposed to survive this operation. The three searchers are keen on the heels of Glazer as he systematically finds and kills his targets and their families through stakeouts and deceptions. The book succeeds in making the opposing characters of Glazer and Lee into compelling adversaries. While Glazer’s mission is definitely merciless, he is driven by his own deep grief and sense of justice; Lee is simply a man with a moral code who wants to return to his family. Readers will dread the inevitable showdown between the two adversaries. Hansford, Eli, and Bobby make excellent villains in the tale, set against the backdrop of the misery and suffering after the war. The novel doesn’t pull any punches about racism and the cruelty against blacks. The ending is sharp and sudden, somewhat at odds with the slower nature of the rest of the story.
A gripping, brutal tale of revenge and devastation.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-18456-1
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Leviathan Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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