A fast-paced historical novel that is both scary and witty, a wonderful combination.
In this prequel, readers discover where a feisty, chain-smoking, elderly flapper got her start—in Chicago in the Roaring ’20s with all of its frenetic craziness.
Seventeen-year-old Kathleen McPherson comes from a staid, upper-middle-class family in Minneapolis, but she is a rebel at heart. When a young classmate is murdered in the park right across from her house one night in 1923, she begins to sense danger. She decides she will absolutely not attend the women’s college that her family has picked out for her. A talented dancer, she and her gifted singer pal, Sophie Dagget, run off to Chicago. Amazingly, they both find work, but that just pulls them deeper into danger. Madcap characters proliferate. Some are good and protective, but others are as dangerous as rattlesnakes. In fact, people from Kathleen’s past in Minneapolis are more treacherous than the notorious gangsters in Chicago. Did her almost lover Chester Davidson fake his death, and is he now trying to kill her? What about wacky Ivy Schrader? Is Mrs. Vivian Davidson to be trusted? And who is this rather creepy Pritchard fellow who nonetheless seems to be a kind of guardian angel? The action never stops, and the girls—the annoying Dolly, a former classmate, also shows up—get into one scrape after another. Kathleen falls for a married man who is not really the cad that he seems. The imposter is finally revealed, and readers can have their choice of stalkers, depending on the quarry. Dietz (The Flapper, the Scientist, and the Saboteur, 2016), whose preceding novel featured Aunt Kathleen McPherson as an aging flapper and spirited amateur detective, has a wonderful time with all of it. The chapters are quite short, with each one featuring an epigraph and an appropriate cliffhanger or semicliffhanger. The author’s prose deftly captures her protagonist’s gutsiness and insouciance. Here Kathleen steals a gangster’s car left idling: “She floor boarded it down the street, howling in delight, taking the corner on two wheels.…Her face hurt from grinning.” It is hard to believe that the teenage flapper could be so savvy, so smart, such a survivor, but Dietz makes readers believe as the pages turn. The author is also a master of suspense. Not until the final pages is the stalker (or stalkers) revealed.
A fast-paced historical novel that is both scary and witty, a wonderful combination.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-945212-65-9
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Quill Mark Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
