A winning new detective who overcomes his demons while grappling with a case.
A debut novel follows a conflicted sleuth investigating a high-profile murder.
Andy Carrick is a former British Special Forces officer who is still struggling with his near-death experience in Afghanistan. Andy has been treating his PTSD with alcohol as the security firm that he inherited crumbles thanks to his absentee management. He’s hiding out at a cottage in rural France when a chance to rejoin the real world presents itself. He gets a call from famed advertising guru Tony Maine, who is nearby visiting a former employee named Emma Luc, the wife of Andy’s mate Didier. At a major advertising awards event in Cannes, a maverick creative director has had his throat slashed, and Maine wants Andy to investigate the homicide quietly. It soon becomes clear that Andy is a soldier, not a detective. After Maine’s suggested line of inquiry doesn’t pan out, Andy comes up with his own, equally unsuccessful theories. Soon, he’s in trouble with the local police and then on the run, as he discovers he’s been set up as a distraction. Andy uses his military training to stay alive, leaving a trail of bodies as he attempts to solve the murder. Then he teams up with some of the contacts he has made in Cannes to try to bring the criminals to justice. Newman skillfully presents Andy as one of the many soldiers who have trouble resettling into civilian life for a number of reasons. What haunts Andy are the nightmares of his imprisonment and the marriage that fell apart after a former squad mate seduced his wife. Which, naturally, left Andy living in solitary: “His regime of savage self-reproach had descended into a lifestyle unsuited to company and he’d lowered the curtain on friends and foes alike.” It is heartening to watch Andy come back to life once he has a mission again. His immersion in the rampant fakery of advertising finds him on a field of battle that he doesn’t understand, and the characters from that world are generally unlikable. Newman’s engrossing narrative is well-paced, with Andy frequently facing and overcoming new challenges as he starts to dig himself out of his depression. Here’s hoping the author has more adventures planned for his appealing hero.
A winning new detective who overcomes his demons while grappling with a case.Pub Date: July 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-648-24942-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Brandnewman
Review Posted Online: July 14, 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
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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