The Lindbergh kidnapping, with its pendant of unsolved mysteries and its merry-go-round of motley extortionists, is tailor-made for hard-boiled historical specialist Nate Heller (True Detective, Neon Mirage), whose hit-or-miss author pulls out all the stops in this lavish fictionalization. Sent east to help Slim Lindbergh after a false alarm in Chicago gives him the reputation of a kidnapping specialist (he really does recover the child, but it isn't Lindbergh's), Nate chases leads too wild for the uniformed boys—one trip to super- psychic Edgar Cayce in Virginia Beach, another to suspect spiritualist Sister Sarah Sivella and her fly-by-night husband Martin Marinelli, all of whose leads lead nowhere—and cultivates his suspicions of the Lindberghs' self-appointed go-between, Professor John F. ``Jafsie'' Condon, of Lindbergh servants Oliver and Elsie Whately and Violet Sharpe, of speak-easy king Mickey Rosner—in fact, of almost everybody involved that he's not actually sleeping with (an unlikely one-nighter with sister Sarah, and a much longer stint with Washington socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean, who's willing to pay mobster Gaston Means a hundred grand to recover the baby). Nate's cynicism, of course, is all too justified: neither of the ransom payoffs pays off; a dead baby is identified as the kidnap victim; and Nate retreats to Chicago after Bruno Richard Hauptmann's arrest. And when New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman invites him back four years later to dig up last-minute evidence for Hauptmann's reprieve, Nate quickly uncovers evidence that Hauptmann's been railroaded and that serious mob kingpins (Capone, Nitti) have been in on the case from the beginning—evidence that, like his identification of Lindbergh Junior as living in Michigan, he'll never be able to use in court. Ashes, ashes. Though Nate sometimes writes as if he's been shanghaied by history (``Her smile was a tragic fucking thing''), this is a meaty, satisfying rehash of the crime of the century—required reading for people who still wonder.
Pub Date: May 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-553-07133-5
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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