Light on plot, heavy on agenda, this sequel to The Sniper (1989) belabors readers with the author’s outrage over the illicit use of rare or exotic animals in “canned” hunts and Asian medicine. Taylor (Hello, Arctic, p. 1045, etc.) gets the ball rolling by plugging in elements from the previous tale. Once again, just as teenaged Ben Jepson’s high-profile animal-rights activist parents disappear while traveling in a remote corner of the world, and the foreman of their big-cat preserve in California is hospitalized leaving Ben in charge, the compound is attacked—this time by multiple enemies. First, Asian gangsters involved in tiger poaching drop the body of a young prostitute into the spotted leopards’ compound, then, after Ben takes time out from the ensuing investigation to blow the whistle on a ranch where discarded zoo animals are sold to would-be hunters, parties unknown contrive to whisk the preserve’s huge Siberian tiger away in the night. Breaking into italics, generally for no discernable reason, the author tells the tale tersely, hammering away at unscrupulous zoos and wild animal handlers in repetitive conversations or ruminations, and giving Ben a trail of convenient clues that lead, finally, to the kidnapped tiger, a second corpse, and an end from which strings dangle like carpet fringe. Taylor’s cause is a worthy one, but the perfunctory story onto which he loads it is a nonstarter. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-439-33725-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2002
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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