A fine procedural augmented by beefy subplots and a pitiable villain.
In the latest installment of Williams’ (Ace, 2015, etc.) thriller series, police detective Salvador Mitchell dodges assassins and deals with a surprise inheritance while a grieving father plans an explosive retribution.
Mitchell is understandably taken aback by the news of his mother Cora’s death in a helicopter crash in Costa Rica. But he’s outright shocked when attorney V.E. McNamara informs him that Cora’s estate, to which Mitchell’s entitled, is worth anywhere from $10 million to $30 million due to the respect that her paintings have garnered in the art world. A condition of the inheritance, however, is that Mitchell must leave his job as a homicide detective in the city of Salento, which he isn’t ready to do. His girlfriend, Mya Laing, would prefer that he turn in his shield, especially when it’s clear that people are trying to kill him—likely gang members seeking revenge for their boss’s death. Meanwhile, retired city engineer Kerak Daniluk is still mourning his engineer son, Wil, who died in an allegedly job-related accident. Kerak is distraught over the city’s apathetic handling of Wil’s death, so he plots vengeance, slowly amassing components for explosives—and his path soon crosses with Mitchell’s. Despite the presence of returning characters, including Mitchell, Laing, and Mitchell’s partner, Eddie “Sandman” Sandovan, the standout in Williams’ fourth series entry is Kerak. Despite his terrible goals, he’s quite sympathetic, and his plan is so methodical that the story never lingers on its potential malice. When it appears that nosy hunters might catch on to what Kerak’s doing, readers will see them more as obstacles than as potential heroes. Other assorted subplots, including one involving Laing’s ad-executive job, eventually tie into the main storyline, as well, sometimes in unexpected ways. Mitchell himself proves capable when facing hit men, but there’s only a modicum of detective work this time around given everything else that he has to deal with. Williams’ vivid descriptions also leave their mark: “The cityscape was a gallimaufry of varying architectural styles and lighting…bright white metal halides sparkled like diamonds.”
A fine procedural augmented by beefy subplots and a pitiable villain.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5455-4841-7
Page Count: 330
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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