An entertaining, fast-paced mystery.
In this 18th entry in Fischer’s (Ashes to Ashes, 2018, etc.) mystery series, a Hollywood novelist/screenwriter runs into danger when his latest project threatens to expose old secrets about President John F. Kennedy’s father.
Joe Bernardi, once a top Hollywood publicist, has shifted careers to write novels and screenplays, but he often finds himself investigating Tinseltown murders and scandals. In 1963, his publisher intriguingly asks him to write a nonfiction account of a 35-year-old murder aboard the yacht Highland Rose. The alleged shooter was Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., the president’s dad—and surprisingly, the book proposal is coming from JFK’s inner circle. Apparently, the president’s enemies are preparing their own hatchet job, and his allies want to get ahead of it. The trail’s gone cold since 1929, when the elder Kennedy was a rich but relatively unknown bootlegger. Murder victim Archie Farrell, a second-rate, alcoholic talent agent, was similarly obscure. But some Hollywood bigwigs were on the yacht, too, including Farrell’s wife, the glamorous actress Gladys Cooper; and Gloria Swanson, Kennedy’s mistress. Bernardi tracks down the original newspaper, police, and crew accounts in Monterey Bay, where the yacht was moored, as well as still-living witnesses, including Cooper and Swanson. He also confronts lies, evasions, and beatings, which only spur his resolve—but in the end, the facts may not be the most important thing. Fischer is a former screenwriter and producer for such TV shows as Columbo and Murder, She Wrote, and he knows how to tell a compelling story. The gumshoe-style mystery at the heart of his novel is intriguing in itself, but it gets an extra boost from the Hollywood glamour that surrounds it; for example, readers get to visit the set of the film My Fair Lady, in which Cooper is one of the actors, and Bernardi offers his opinion that casting Audrey Hepburn as the lead is a terrible idea. The story has a sense of pathos, as well, revealing how less-powerful players were affected by the Highland Rose incident, and as Bernardi bemoans the bitterness, anger, and division of 1963, the author holds a mirror up to our own fractious era.
An entertaining, fast-paced mystery.Pub Date: March 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9960491-7-7
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Grove Point Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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