Hogan (The Blood Artists, 1998, etc.) writes with cool precision and a great eye for detail, progressively building...
The romance between a bank robber and one of his former hostages threatens both the unity and the safety of his criminal crew.
Pals Doug (“Duggy”) MacRay, Jimmy (“Jem”) Coughlin, Desmond (“Dez”) Eldon, and Freddy (“Gloansy”) Magloan, regular guys from the working-class Boston neighborhood of Charleston, pull off a successful bank robbery in busy Kenmore Square. This is not a onetime thing, but the quartet’s regular business, approached with measured professionalism. Even when unexpected glitches interfere with the well-planned heist, cool heads prevail. Briefly taking pretty young branch manager Claire Keesey hostage, they get away clean, leaving nary a clue behind. (Masks prevent identification.) The twist here is that the robbers are average citizens with family ties and otherwise unremarkable lives, while the FBI special agent who pursues them, Adam Frawley, is the obsessed workaholic. Doug, meanwhile, does the unthinkable: smitten, he locates Claire, pretends to meet her for the first time, and asks her out. Their romance blossoms even as she, completely clueless about Doug’s original interaction with her, remains the main witness to the crime, receiving regular visits from Frawley. Their relationship too takes on a whiff of romance, though less explicitly. Tension arises among the thieving friends over the tandem decisions to sit on their loot and to back away from further bank jobs for a while, although they do hold up a movie theater in nearby Braintree. Frawley’s dogged probing yields some leads; the guys feel the heat and excoriate Claire, oblivious of Doug’s new connection. Matters come to a head when Jem learns of the relationship; he and Frawley squeeze the pair from opposite sides.
Hogan (The Blood Artists, 1998, etc.) writes with cool precision and a great eye for detail, progressively building suspense. Still, too much Doug and Claire and too little of the other thieves unbalances the story and gives it a disappointingly soft center.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-6455-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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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