The Lindbergh kidnapping, with its pendant of unsolved mysteries and its merry-go-round of motley extortionists, is tailor-made for hard-boiled historical specialist Nate Heller (True Detective, Neon Mirage), whose hit-or-miss author pulls out all the stops in this lavish fictionalization. Sent east to help Slim Lindbergh after a false alarm in Chicago gives him the reputation of a kidnapping specialist (he really does recover the child, but it isn't Lindbergh's), Nate chases leads too wild for the uniformed boys—one trip to super- psychic Edgar Cayce in Virginia Beach, another to suspect spiritualist Sister Sarah Sivella and her fly-by-night husband Martin Marinelli, all of whose leads lead nowhere—and cultivates his suspicions of the Lindberghs' self-appointed go-between, Professor John F. ``Jafsie'' Condon, of Lindbergh servants Oliver and Elsie Whately and Violet Sharpe, of speak-easy king Mickey Rosner—in fact, of almost everybody involved that he's not actually sleeping with (an unlikely one-nighter with sister Sarah, and a much longer stint with Washington socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean, who's willing to pay mobster Gaston Means a hundred grand to recover the baby). Nate's cynicism, of course, is all too justified: neither of the ransom payoffs pays off; a dead baby is identified as the kidnap victim; and Nate retreats to Chicago after Bruno Richard Hauptmann's arrest. And when New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman invites him back four years later to dig up last-minute evidence for Hauptmann's reprieve, Nate quickly uncovers evidence that Hauptmann's been railroaded and that serious mob kingpins (Capone, Nitti) have been in on the case from the beginning—evidence that, like his identification of Lindbergh Junior as living in Michigan, he'll never be able to use in court. Ashes, ashes. Though Nate sometimes writes as if he's been shanghaied by history (``Her smile was a tragic fucking thing''), this is a meaty, satisfying rehash of the crime of the century—required reading for people who still wonder.
Pub Date: May 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-553-07133-5
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991
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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