Then tables are turned with a vengeance when two con men try to turn a 1931 shipboard romance into a spot of genteel blackmail—only to find the family that they've targeted single-handedly started WW I. Originally jealous of his old friend Max Wingate's amatory success with heiress Diana Charmwood, Guy Horton recoils in amazement when Max announces that he's too much in love with the lady to let her fearsome father, investment mogul Fabian Charmwood, buy him off—and then recoils in horror when Max's elopement with Diana, the details to which Guy had sold Charmwood, is interrupted by the appearance of the great man's corpse, sending Max into hiding and Guy determined to clear his name. Max will turn up again, but only as Guy and Diana are lying in each other's grief-stricken arms in Venice, where a group of Charmwood's creditors, who can't believe the news that his vast empire is worthless, have commissioned Guy to pry the whereabouts of his hidden assets out of Diana and her Aunt Vita. But the worst, as usual with Goddard, is still to come: scruffy journalist George Duggan tells a wild tale linking Charmwood—via an unholy cabal of investors calling themselves the Concentric Alliance—to a plot to assassinate Franz Ferdinand in order to make the world safe for the armaments they've been investing in. Though Guy's story has lost every shred of plausibility by now, the continuing refrain of threat and counterthreat (will the Concentric Alliance be able to silence Guy before he's able to publish the damning evidence against them? whom can he trust in his flight from the perilous circle? and will he ever learn not to trust the sleek Diana?) will still keep you up much later than it should. High-toned, preposterous romantic period suspense from an old pro (Hand in Glove, 1993; A Debt of Dishonour, 1992, etc.).
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-75072-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1993
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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