by Héctor Aguilar Camín translated by Chandler Thompson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 2015
This ambitious novel memorably brings together recent history, horrific crimes, and an ever present sense of corruption.
A reporter investigates corruption and wrestles with complex personal entanglements in this tense novel set in 1970s Mexico.
Aguilar Camín’s novel spans more than a decade in the life of its narrator, an unnamed journalist whose slow ascent toward prominence—one character calls him “a national opinionmaker”—acts as a backdrop for the events that follow. The first chapter traces the narrator’s friend Rojano’s slow rise in politics and sets up the complex dynamic between Rojano and his wife, Anabela, for whom the narrator not-so-secretly pines. What emerges from this is an intricate maze of corruption involving land rights, megalomaniacal union officials, crime scene photos of dubious authenticity, and public figures less than concerned with the public good. One particularly sinister figure is fond of the phrase “whoever can add can divide,” which occurs throughout the book, sounding equally inspirational and threatening. The narrator’s world-weary observations crop up again and again: he notes that a man nicknamed Smiley was thus dubbed after a gunshot to the face, which “left him with an indelible smile that couldn’t be wiped off.” That balance of violence and gallows humor infuses the novel. Another character tells the narrator that “history is full of revolutions the police have outlived,” which furthers the cynical mood. Over the course of the novel, Anabela becomes more and more prominent, and the narrator is often left to puzzle over the motivation behind, and truth of, a series of violent acts in the wake of her clashes with a union leader. Aguilar Camín’s fondness for using specific dates in the narrative furthers the sense of realism, even as the novel’s events become more ambiguous.
This ambitious novel memorably brings together recent history, horrific crimes, and an ever present sense of corruption.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-936182-92-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Schaffner Press
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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by Héctor Aguilar Camín ; translated by Chandler Thompson
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PROFILES
by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
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
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by Kathy Reichs
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by Kathy Reichs
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by Kathy Reichs
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: 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
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