In her role as a spinner of tales, Daphne du Maurier has few equals, and this, which in any other hands would be a fantastically unbelievable yarn, holds the spellbound reader with a mounting conviction that so it might have been. There is more than usual of plot, intricate, many faceted, reaching back into a past that the reader discovers along with John, English professor of 16th century French history, single, bored with his lot — and thrust by a strange chance into another's life. There is less of atmosphere, though bit by bit you soak up the feel of the provincial French countryside, the rundown Chateau, not far from Le Mans, the village whose people work at the de Gue glass works. And the unbelievable situation she makes one believe? That John encounters by chance, his alter ego, identical externally, Jean, Conte de Gue, who is as eager to escape his role in life as is his English counterpart. But Jean is unscrupulous, cynically amused to bring it about. He drugs the Englishman, takes him to a shady hotel room, there divests him of every shred of proof of identity other than Conte de Gue, orders Gaston, the chauffeur, to collect him in Le Mans the next morning — and departs, to carry out his side of the masquerade. John, now Jean de Gue, is caught in the net. He finds himself saddled with a gross distortion of a mother, the ancient Comtesse, now brought low by drugs; with a wife, pregnant, terrified that she will not bear the son that will bring the Chateau and the works new life through an inheritance; with a nine year old daughter, who adores her father, and is fearful that a brother will displace her; with a sister, carrying a fifteen year grudge for the death of her fiance, charged as being a collaborator; with a brother, who inadequately carries the burden of the factory on unwilling shoulders; with a sister-in-law who is interested only in prolonging an affaire, and with a mistress in the village who can take it or leave it, as suits her lover's whim. How be meets the multiple problems, the gaffes he inevitably makes, the narrow margin by which he escapes detection, the changes he brings about in the intricate web of lives - to expound further along these lines would betray Miss du Maurier in the fascinating development of her theme. Flawless craftsman that she is, here, is a story that finds her at peak performance. A sure best seller.
Pub Date: Feb. 20, 1956
ISBN: 081221725X
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1956
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous...
A struggling student’s English assignment turns into a mission to solve a 30-year-old murder.
Joe Talbert has had very few breaks in his 21 years. The son of a single and very alcoholic mother, he’s worked hard to save enough money to leave his home in Austin, Minnesota, for the University of Minnesota. Although he has to leave his autistic younger brother, Jeremy Naylor, to the dubious care of their mother, Joe is determined to beat the odds and get his degree. For an assignment in his English class, he decides to interview Carl Iverson, a man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl. Carl, who maintains his innocence, is dying of cancer and has been released to a nursing home to end his life in lonely but unrepentant pain. The more Joe learns about Carl—a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross—the more the young man questions the conviction. Joe’s plan to write a short biography and earn an easy A turns into something more. Even after his mother is arrested for drunk driving and guilt-trips Joe into ransacking his college fund to bail her out, he soldiers on with the project, though her irresponsibility forces him to take Jeremy into his care. But it’s his younger brother who cracks the code of the long-dead murder victim’s secret diary and an attractive neighbor, Lila Nash, who has her own agenda for helping Joe solve the mystery, whatever the risk.
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous than championing a bitter old man convicted of a horrific crime.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-998-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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