The 20 new stories in this year’s Mystery Writers of America’s annual anthology focus on financial vicissitudes.
Editor DeMille, a perennial resident on the bestseller lists, is less deft at finding surefire short-story winners, with only two standouts. One of them, seasoned pro Lee Child, turns the tables on a coke dealer with a defective Bic. The other, newcomer K. Catalona, drolly presents a literary agent and his spunky geriatric helper who co-opt a client’s manuscript. As for the rest: Angela Zeman takes a society journalist to task; Elaine Togneri establishes a photojournalist in his career; Ted Bell nails a tabloid reporter for stealing; and S.J. Rozan goes one better and offs a tabloid blackmailer between poker hands. A Ponzi scheme fails to enliven a surprisingly dull appearance by Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch. Tim Chapman makes a mom resort to murder. Twist Phelan shows how a father and grandfather’s get-rich dreams go awry. DeMille plots insurance fraud in the Hamptons; Carolyn Mullen plots murder for revenge in a mill town. Daniel Hale places diamonds in a Texas cabin; David Morrell sets up a fake murder attempt at Lincoln Center; Joseph Goodrich assuages poverty and loneliness in a Paris cemetery; Roberta Islieb puckishly demeans the tourist potential of Key West. Peter Blauner topples a faded Hollywood star; David DeLee’s on-the-skids rap star gains street cred. Frank Cook’s scientific breakthrough leads to dementia, and Jonathan Santlofer’s deals with the Old Masters. Not helped by DeMille’s lackluster introduction or the generally pedestrian handling of the volume’s uninspiring theme.
Pub Date: May 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-445-55587-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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