The chief of the Capitol Police runs afoul of local and Louisiana politics as he tries to solve a series of brutal murders. The victims are women, the stakes are in the zillions, and the authors (Senator Cohen; One-Eyed Kings, 1991, etc.; veteran writer Allen) know Washington from the sub-basement up. Glamorous and possibly rotten Senator Julia Bristow, who inherited her office from her recently drowned husband, holds the deciding vote in the battle for statehood for the District of Columbia until her pretty, behatted corpse is discovered on the senatorial subway. Capitol Police chief and former FBI agent Jeffrey Fitzgerald gets orders from the majority leader (the man who got him his job) to clear things up pronto and without help from the FBI. Fitzgerald gets excellent assistance from his most attractive lieutenant, Alexandra Phelan, but clues are slow in coming to light; and before much progress is made, there's a second murder. The victim this time is a black woman who had been in the forefront of the statehood movement, and the modus operandi is precisely that used on Bristow. Aside from the straightforward detecting, Fitzgerald and Phelan must do battle with the creepy Capitol Architect, an unknown traitor on the Capitol Police force, the rotten mayor of the District, and the crypto-fascist congressman who moved into Bristow's seat rather too quickly. They get help from Fitzgerald's psychic landlady, a right-minded FBI administrator, and the crusty District medical examiner. They get relief from each other. A nicely brisk pace, authentically creepy politicians, and clever use of the Capitol itself keep things interesting when the plot gets silly.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-26678-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
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
BOOK REVIEW
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