A light, entertaining read from a mystery author whose pleasure in her characters remains evident and welcome.
A sports editor encounters death and duplicity in a small-town newsroom.
When Mimi Goldman returns to Chautauqua, New York, after a 16-year absence to resume her duties as sports editor for the local daily paper, she has no reason to expect that she will again be confronted by a colleague’s murder. Yet within five weeks, she discovers the body of the paper’s editor, Joe Wentworth, slumped at his desk after suffering a gunshot wound. Two suspects are arrested in his car with his stolen credit cards, and most Chautauquans consider the matter closed. But Mimi questions the police’s conclusion and launches her own investigation, setting up an elaborate ruse at the newspaper that has her posing as a law enforcement liaison. Soon she’s interviewing suspects and potential witnesses, collecting possible physical evidence from outside the crime scene, and searching through the victim’s belongings. She even enlists her adult son to do some Internet sleuthing. Her probe leads her to uncover romantic and sexual entanglements, unrequited crushes, and past commitments about which her boss and friend was scrupulously reticent. She also discovers a potential enemy from within the newspaper’s own ranks. This is Pines’ (Gone Fishin’, 2016, etc.) third Mimi Goldman outing set in Chautauqua, with the second a whimsical novelette devoid of murders. But both the first book and this one suffer from an insufficient explanation of Mimi’s motivations. The fact that the victims were dear friends doesn’t fully clarify why she willingly sacrifices safety and relationships to pursue her nebulous suspicions. Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable, agreeably paced reading experience with solid character development and numerous plot twists. Mimi gains a new love interest, and her fears about navigating the romance make for some of the tale’s most emotionally resonant scenes. Other relationships are less skillfully handled, especially the sly speculation regarding a male character’s possible crush on a guy. Quirky use of colons (“the other three non-college-aged staffers: were Mimi”), outdated slang (“cig” for “cigarette”), and a character’s repeated recitations of the Lord’s Prayer in its entirety detract from the narrative’s flow. Still, Pines pays particular attention to her delightful lakeside setting, inviting readers to appreciate it through her vibrant descriptions. And though the foreshadowing is a bit clumsy, there are enough teasers and red herrings to make the ending a surprise.
A light, entertaining read from a mystery author whose pleasure in her characters remains evident and welcome.Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5148-9278-7
Page Count: 362
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2016
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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