Another solid, entertaining noir thriller from Bartley.
In Bartley’s (A Bullet to Dream of, 2014, etc.) latest historical novel, a 1930s gangster with a conscience finds himself tangled up in big small-town mysteries involving murder, drugs and—most dangerous of all—young love.
In the book’s very first paragraph, Ross Duncan drinks Old Overholt rye, checks his pistol and reads his Bible, which provides a succinct snapshot of his character: a man with a hard past who’s willing to do hard things but who’s also looking for a redemptive path through life. Unfortunately for Ross, his path out West, after a couple of flat tires, leaves him stranded in Gentryville, a small California town that’s a hotbed of noir suspense. There’s a young, up-and-coming boxer whose trainer uses some unorthodox methods, including narcotics; a blowsy drunk with a hard-luck tale of an embezzling husband; and a good-time mayor with the muscle to enforce his special rules who’s facing an imminent election against his old mentor. As a bartender tells Ross, “There are a lot of things about this town you wouldn’t guess.” Ross, who stands up to bullies, becomes drawn to the tragedy of the boxer and his girlfriend; finally, he ends up working for the shady Mayor Vargas. The mayor has a blurry past, a mysterious wife and a plan for a big score. The mysteries of Gentryville soon stretch to San Francisco, with its scandal-ridden Hetch Hetchy plan to bring water from Yosemite, and to Detroit, with a tale of missing drugs and a missing wife. Bartley’s writing is confident throughout, moving smoothly from the clean prose of action scenes (“I shot him once in the chest”) to poetic asides on small-town sin; Gentryville, for example, is described as “a confined space that allowed the whispers to echo.” Ross, in particular, is a curious character: a bank robber who talks about physicists, evolution and psychiatry (“In prison I’d read some writings by a guy named Freud: ‘No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore’ ”). Although he sometimes seems overly informed, he’s an intriguing guide for a redemptive tale that’s also a meditation on love.
Another solid, entertaining noir thriller from Bartley.Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1780362601
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Peach Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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