In his first children's book to be published here, a well- regarded New Zealand novelist sets a story about four children bringing a pyromaniac to justice early in WW I. From its riveting first chapter—from the point of view of the lumbering masked man who sets fire to the local livery stable because ``a time had come when his fire must consume life''—the action is compelling. Noel and Kitty Wix sound the alarm in time to save the horses; knocked down by the man as he makes a hasty exit, Kitty soon realizes that he is Edgar Marwick, a reclusive, belligerent farmer. Meanwhile, Kitty's new friend is the mayor's overprotected but spunky daughter, Irene; and Noel makes an uneasy alliance with rough but intelligent Phil. Cleverly (and with a daring lack of caution), the four unearth evidence proving Marwick's guilt; meanwhile, they are involved in a jingoistic school pageant (its destructive aftermath is exacerbated by Marwick's support of local rowdies). Other subplots—a romance between their gifted, unfashionably pacifist teacher and a German-born music teacher; Phil's chance for an education—are deftly integrated. Several adult characters are as perceptively drawn as the well-realized protagonists; Marwick's madness is revealed to be the result of his mother's response to a long-ago tragedy. A well-wrought thriller that brings an entire community vividly and believably to life. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-62428-2
Page Count: 172
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1992
From Bradbury (for adults, Quicker Than the Eye, 1996, etc.), a fantasy with moments of brilliance swamped by mystical befuddlement. Ahmed, a young boy, gets lost in a sand storm while trekking across the desert with his father’s caravan. He stumbles on a gigantic buried statue, which his tears awaken. The statue is an ancient god, Gonn-Ben-Allah, Keeper of the Ghost of Lost Names. Gonn-Ben-Allah takes Ahmed through space and time, tracing the history of human efforts to fly (an analogy for the ability to imagine and invent). Bradbury is at his best when he describes past flyers who tried and failed; pterosaurs are called “boney kites” and a balloon is described “as ripe as a peach.” There’s also an aviator, a collector of butterflies who sewed up “a thousand small bright wings”—a captivating image—that attempts flight. Ahmed takes in all that Gonn-Ben-Allah shows him, and when the god “dies,” Ahmed follows in the deity’s footsteps, becoming a flyer himself. The exotic setting is exhilarating, although Gonn’s ornate speech comes across as puffed-up posturing, often stalling the plot and sidelining the story’s purpose. Clearly labeled a fable, the tale has instruction built into most passages, but those passages are occasionally breathtaking.
Pub Date: Nov. 11, 1998
ISBN: 0-380-97704-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1998
Vintage.
A complex tale of obsession is precisely distilled into a haunting character portrayal, in this second novel from the gifted British author (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, 2007).
The subtitle denotes four years (2006–02) in the life of protagonist and narrator Wilberforce (his first name initially withheld), who creates a successful computer software company, sells it in order to accept an irresistible offer and thereafter devotes himself to the cultivation and enjoyment of a prized wine collection. That collection is bequeathed, with strings attached, to Wilberforce by his older friend Francis Black, a bachelor whose inherited wealth has gone to amass a huge array of choice Bordeaux (and other wines), kept in a vast vault (“undercroft”) beneath his family’s estate Caerlyon, outside London. Caerlyon suggests “Corleone” so much so that the reader suspects there’s more to Francis Black than the benign mentor he appears to be. Torday keeps us guessing, as precise imagery suggests the younger man’s immersion in what is perhaps a religious vocation, perhaps a surrender to temptation. Or both, we surmise, as Wilberforce’s story unspools in reverse order, beginning with the upshot of his love for Catherine, a vibrant beauty betrothed to another man; offering a poignant picture of his unhappy foster childhood and all but empty young adulthood; and climaxing with a (brilliantly described) grouse hunt, during which an episode of “innocent happiness” vibrates with the strains of an ironic prophecy of his future. Eventually, we learn Wilberforce’s first name and understand his reluctance to reveal it. But the heritage of sorrow that imprisons him within limits he both has and has not set for himself makes us think of Fitzgerald’s “great” (and, ultimately, unfulfilled) Gatsby. This elegantly conceived novel also reminds us from time to time of another Great Expectations, minus that classic novel’s unconvincing happy ending.
Vintage.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-15-101354-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
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