A dizzying plot served up with tankards of disarming deadpan humor, a smattering of actual pirate history and characters...
Pirates sail again in Thomson’s rollicking debut, a tall, fanciful tale that throws us headlong into a world of peg-legged sea dogs and hidden treasure, just minutes from your nearest Sandals resort.
That’s where buttoned-down, 36-year-old accountant Morgan Baker finds himself when long-lost dad Isaac, recently sprung from prison, steals the Vail & Company yacht, intent on retrieving the $40-million worth of gold ingots he stashed on a remote Caribbean island 28 years earlier. Morgan soon learns that he and his delinquent dad are direct descendants of the notorious Cookes, legendary pirates of yore. Unfortunately, Morgan also discovers that his employers, smarmy and suave CEO Avery Vail and his foulmouthed dowager mother Isabel, are direct descendants of their archrivals, the Hoods, who still hold to the pirate credo, “Dead men tell no tales.” Morgan quickly discards Plan A (reforming wayward dad) in favor of Plan B (joining him). The chase for the buried treasure is on, set against a backdrop of remote Caribbean islands seemingly untouched by time—or soap—and populated by the crew of the Jolly Roger. Screenwriter and Web site cartoon animator Thomson doesn’t waste much effort on gritty details or character nuance. Instead, he sends readers into a maelstrom alongside Morgan and Isaac from one pitched battle to the next. The pirates fight in bars, brawl in brothels, escape (improbably) from Old World dungeons and booby-trapped caves, and set off sufficient fireworks to fuel several Jerry Bruckheimer movies. Granted, believability walks the plank in the process. But who’s expecting realism in a story that features an alcoholic parrot, a curvy, tattooed manicurist equally handy with nail file and pirate’s cutlass, and a boatload of eye-patched, grog-swilling characters with names like Squid, Hatch and Fife?
A dizzying plot served up with tankards of disarming deadpan humor, a smattering of actual pirate history and characters just engaging enough to have us swallow it all.Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-33499-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
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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