A crisply written, well-researched, and thoroughly entertaining romance/thriller/mystery.
In this crime-fiction sequel, legendary criminals Bonnie and Clyde go undercover to prevent a landmark dam from being blown up before it’s completed.
In their previous novel in this series, Hays and McFall (Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road, 2017, etc.) presented an alternative-history scenario: What if the U.S government faked the outlaws’ 1934 deaths and recruited the duo as uniquely talented operatives? Now their handler, Sal, has a new assignment for them. Two murders, and further evidence, suggest that someone is trying to sabotage what will become the Hoover Dam (still called the “Boulder Dam” in 1935). Likely suspects include union members, anarchists, or mobsters, for different reasons, but whoever’s responsible, Sal says, “the dam has to hold.” Assuming the aliases of Brenda and Clarence Prentiss, Bonnie and Clyde go undercover and get jobs—she as a secretary in the dam’s hiring office and he as a water-truck driver. Nothing about this task is harder for them than working for a living; in a running joke, Clyde destroys his alarm clock every morning by throwing it across the room. Hot on the trail of the culprits (and hot for each other), the two dodge lawmen, operatives from Murder Inc., and other dangers. Just as importantly, their consciences grow a few sizes, too. As in Resurrection Road, Hays and McFall evoke time and place well, as in their descriptions of the dam’s brand-new yet scruffy company town: “nearly identical cottages lined up like a battalion of weary desert soldiers, each standing at shabby attention over a tiny front yard of gravel and a few cactus plants.” Though set in the past, the story’s politics are fresh and timely; Jimmy Hall, a union organizer, notes that “We got some things to work through still, like making sure we’re inclusive of all folks and not just white folks, and not just men.” The word “inclusive” feels a bit too modern, but the sentiments are evergreen. Readers will find Bonnie and Clyde to be great company, and the novel’s framing story (the widowed Bonnie’s 1984 recollections) gives their relationship an extra layer of poignancy.
A crisply written, well-researched, and thoroughly entertaining romance/thriller/mystery.Pub Date: March 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9974113-6-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pumpjack Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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