A delightful detective who more than earns and deserves her own series.
In Regan’s (Hold Still, 2014, etc.) thriller, Philadelphia private investigator Jocelyn Rush takes the reins of a cold case from a terminal ex–homicide detective who needs help finding the killer before he dies.
The unsolved murder of teenager Sydney Adams has left former detective Augustus Knox’s life in ruins. Fourteen years later, his wife and job are gone, his daughter hates him, and his alcoholism has ravaged so much of his body that he has mere months to live. He seeks help from Jocelyn, a retired cop now with her own investigation firm. Knox is sure the murderer’s Cash Rigo, Sydney’s married high school coach, who’d likely had an affair with the girl, a dalliance seemingly confirmed by recently discovered photos. Sydney’s murder looks like a random shooting to Jocelyn, but Rigo definitely doesn’t appear innocent, especially with his rickety alibi. Jocelyn teams up with homicide cop Trent Razmus and brings the case in from the cold with news reports declaring new evidence (though it’s not necessarily true) and a fundraiser in Sydney’s honor. Jocelyn eventually links Rigo to a suspicious death and sees signs that he’s abusing his pregnant wife, Francine. But she may underestimate certain people’s desires to keep the truth hidden, which could put Jocelyn’s own life in danger. The protagonist is just as unyielding as she was in Regan’s previous novel: she’s not one to readily offer forgiveness, but her resolve is commendable. There’s little mystery to the story, as Jocelyn has few suspects and spends more time trying to extract a confession from Rigo than investigating the case. But Jocelyn’s life brims with hurdles. The tortured Knox, for one, is perpetually drunk, while Jocelyn fears that sister Camille, a former addict, may want to take away her 4-year-old daughter, Olivia, whom Jocelyn’s raised as her own. Jocelyn’s as tough as they come, but couple that with her motherly instincts, and it’s categorically endearing: “Why can’t I make cupcakes that look like Minions or a goddamn Disney Princess?” the typically foulmouthed private eye grumbles. Even if readers are a step or two ahead of Jocelyn in the investigation, her charisma is unmitigated and unending.
A delightful detective who more than earns and deserves her own series.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9967159-2-8
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Prodorutti Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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