Though die-hard fans may find it disappointing to return to these hoary landmarks, Klinger has provided the perfect gift for...
A gargantuan, extensively annotated collection of five cornerstones of American crime fiction that every fan will want to own even if they never read (or reread) them.
The docket includes the first appearances of Charlie Chan (Earl Derr Biggers’ The House Without a Key, 1925), Philo Vance (S.S. Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case, 1926), and Ellery Queen (Ellery Queen’s The Roman Hat Mystery, 1929) as well as Red Harvest (1929), Dashiell Hammett’s first novel about the Continental Op, and Little Caesar (1929), W.R. Burnett’s memorably filmed account of the rise and fall of Chicago gangster Rico Bandello. Although all five novels are indispensable, most of them are more dated than you remember. Charlie Chan’s appeal, which depends on his self-effacing charm and trademark aphorisms, remains constant from one case to the next, but Van Dine, Queen, and Hammett all published better mysteries within a few years of their first novels, and Burnett’s clipped dialogue (“Some guys are sure careless with the lead,” one of his characters says, mourning another’s passing) reads like a pastiche. Philo Vance, widely perceived as insufferable even at the height of his fame, has grown no more companionable over the years, and the early Ellery Queen runs him a close second. If four of the five selections are memorable mainly as period pieces, Red Harvest still seethes with an unsettling power from its nameless hero’s immersion in a mining town’s labor dispute that along the way produces what must be the only chapter in all fiction titled “The Seventeenth Murder.” Indefatigable editor Klinger (In the Shadow of Agatha Christie, 2018, etc.) provides an incisive foreword, annotations that argue, for example, that the events of The Benson Murder Case took place in 1918 and those of The Roman Hat Mystery in 1923, and variously salient pictures of Anthony van Dyck, Al Capone, and King Kal?kaua of Hawaii.
Though die-hard fans may find it disappointing to return to these hoary landmarks, Klinger has provided the perfect gift for newcomers lucky enough not to have read its contents already—and the perfect excuse to wonder if a 1930s sequel may be lurking around the corner.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68177-861-7
Page Count: 1152
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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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