An absorbing tale with a capable and complex detective.
In Reede’s (Blinked, 2017, etc.) thriller, a Texan private investigator makes headway in her search for her missing sister, who vanished three years ago.
Lana Madison has never stopped looking for her identical twin, Dania, even if the police evidently have. The 23-year-old has such a strong spiritual connection to her sibling that she’s certain that Dania is still alive. After dropping out of college, Lana consulted private investigator Ben Collins, who later hired and trained her. She’s skilled in self-defense tactics, which come in handy when two men abduct her; fortunately, it turns out that the perpetrators may be connected to Dania’s disappearance. Lana investigates them with help from “The Boys”—her computer-savvy pals Kit and James—as well as EJ, who was Dania’s prom date back in high school. One of the traffickers possesses bondage-torture videos, and although the images are blurry, Lana and EJ suspect that Dania is the victim pictured in the footage. Lana also works with fellow private eye Oscar “Oz” Cooke, whose teenage stepdaughter, Cassie, disappeared around the same time as Dania did. Meanwhile, a creepy, unknown stalker is watching Lana as her determination to find her sis puts her, and possibly her friends, in further peril. Reede’s flawed but resolute private eye is an exceptional protagonist. “I’m nobody’s punching bag,” she says—a statement that applies both to social settings and physical confrontations. At the same time, the author shows Lana to be emotionally conflicted, particularly when it comes to romance; she resists her attraction to multiple men (including EJ; Oz; her friend/personal trainer, Favor; and local police detective Samuel Norris), resulting in occasionally awkward—and funny—situations. Scenes from the unnerving stalker’s perspective offer memorable moments, and Lana’s investigation progresses at a steady pace throughout. The plot relies too heavily on coincidence at times, but the extraordinary ending is one that readers won’t easily forget.
An absorbing tale with a capable and complex detective.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64437-023-0
Page Count: 269
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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