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PRIMARY TARGET

Payback’s a bitch. Billheimer makes sure it’s entertaining, too.

Accident analyst Owen Allison (Stonewall Jackson’s Elbow, 2006, etc.) tangles with an old foe while trying to ensure election integrity.

Sheriff Thad Reader recognizes West Virginia’s checkered history of election fraud. But as the presidential primary draws near, he swears that no votes will be bought or sold in his county, even deputizing his friend Owen Allison to keep watch over the absentee ballots, which are especially vulnerable to fraud. Allison isn’t exactly a neutral party, since the race pits Missouri Gov. Sam Halstead against California Sen. Jason Davison, son of the man who caused Tranalytics, Owen’s consulting business, to go belly up 10 years ago. The closer the election gets, the more partisan Owen becomes, especially when he hears of the suicide of Dan Thornton, one of his old Tranalytics partners. Dan’s death seems fishy to Owen, the disappearance of Dan’s files seems fishier still, and soon he knows he’s running with a pack of sharks who will stop at nothing to get their man onto the national ballot. Even Owen’s mother, Ruth, gets into the swim, taking a group of local seniors to the polling place only to find that their votes have already been tallied. Billheimer blends fast-paced action with vivid local color as his hero fights to keep the Davisons from taking not only his livelihood, but his life.

Payback’s a bitch. Billheimer makes sure it’s entertaining, too.

Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-932325-59-1

Page Count: 344

Publisher: The Mystery Company/Crum Creek

Review Posted Online: June 18, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

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THE ALCHEMIST

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind. 

 The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. 

 Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Pub Date: July 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-06-250217-4

Page Count: 192

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993

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