An engaging detective gets support from neither other characters nor the plot in this laborious outing.
In Dunning’s debut novel, a woman’s suspicious death in a Kentish country home brings together an assemblage of London and local police with the residents of the subdivided house.
Detective Superintendent Charles Blower, a venerable member of London’s Metropolitan Police, becomes involved in an investigation at Benfield House when a woman is discovered dead in one of the flats. He is induced to investigate the supposedly accidental death by his good friend Alex Pike, a friend of the flat’s absent owner. The caretaker’s far-fetched explanation for the woman’s death—that it was an inadvertent piercing while she sat under a window that spontaneously shattered—makes Blower and Pike wary of the caretaker, an annoying Cockney named Albert Drew. Superintendent Blower and company must first determine the woman’s identity and then the reason for her ill-fated visit. Next, he must find out which of the many colorful denizens of Benfield House, her family or her associates might have had a motive to kill her. Although murder is extremely unusual in the quaint Kentish town, burglaries have become commonplace, and Benfield House is the site of one amid Blower’s investigation. Eventually, all the culprits are apprehended and arrested, but not before hundreds of cups of tea have been prepared and served, along with endless customary English meals. Very little action fills the spaces between the “cuppas” and comestibles, though much is left to tin-eared dialogue, including the transliterated Cockney of Mr. Drew: “[Y]eah, ’es the bloke what’s ’avin’ it off wiv ’er in number four ain’ ’e.” Adding to the difficulty deciphering the dialect is the author’s sporadic use of simple punctuation, commas especially. This leads to many confusing sentences: “Conspiracy to murder Thomas?” or “We’ll shout darling if anything really startling comes up.” The sophistication of the crime fighters strains credulity when the issue of acquiring mobile phones for members of the force is brought up at least 10 times; a training session is held to familiarize officers with “this amazing device, which, I’m prepared to bet, will revolutionize communications and crime solving in the next ten years or so.”
An engaging detective gets support from neither other characters nor the plot in this laborious outing.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491883280
Page Count: 254
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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