An enticing fourth series installment thanks to an engaging cast.
In Feliz’s (Dead Storage, 2017, etc.) murder mystery, amateur sleuth and professional organizer Maggie McDonald comes to the aid of her best friend, whom the cops suspect of murder.
Maggie’s skills as an organizer include prepping for emergencies—for example, the spreading wildfire in the vicinity of Silicon Valley, where her family’s home is located. But it turns out that her friend, real estate agent Tess Olmos, needs her even more. Tess’ husband, Patrick, initially appears to have died from an accidental fall. However, a bullet wound in his shoulder, among other signs, points to a violent assault. When police later find a gun on a workbench in the Olmoses’ garage, Tess becomes a person of interest. Maggie, however, is suspicious, as no one recalls seeing the gun there before. She’s been involved in murder investigations in the past (in previous installments of this series), and she embarks on a mission to clear her friend’s name, starting by questioning other suspects, including Tess’ assistant and Patrick’s running partner. Maggie has plenty of help, particularly from her cop pal, Jason Mueller, who’s not officially working on Patrick’s homicide case. But other troubles soon arise involving local drug cartels, and, later, Maggie’s two sons disappear—along with Tess’ son. Feliz’s mystery features myriad appealing characters, most of them returning from previous books in the series; Jason is an always-reliable ally, as is his war-veteran husband, Stephen. Even Maggie’s pets have distinct personalities—golden retriever Belle, for instance, repeatedly nudges people with her nose for comfort or attention. The mystery plot is lightweight, and Maggie’s suspicions of others seem based more on her own impressions than any real evidence. But the whip-smart amateur detective does show considerable skill, particularly when it comes to organizing; at one point, she wisely anticipates and prepares for neighbors arriving at the Olmoses’ home to support newly widowed Tess. And Maggie’s charm knows no bounds, even when she’s interviewing an especially loathsome man: “I squelched my desire to kick him in the shins, or worse.”
An enticing fourth series installment thanks to an engaging cast.Pub Date: July 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5161-0529-8
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Lyrical Underground
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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