Eversz gives Nina engaging depth, though the dense prose and grim story may turn off some readers.
In the course of helping a teenaged waif, a tabloid paparazza unearths a creepy cult.
Acting on a tip from a runaway named Theresa, Hollywood photographer Nina Zero snaps some shots of former film hottie Chad Stonewell. She’s more interested in helping the girl than in capturing Stonewell, a has-been few readers will care about nearly as much as they care about James Dean, whose bones, according to Scandal Times staff writer Frank, have recently been stolen from his grave. When the same fate befalls the remains of Rudolph Valentino, the knowledgeable Frank suspects a cloning scheme. It all sounds crazy, but Nina finds the mystery a refuge from the chaos of her personal life. She’s on parole for manslaughter (Burning Garbo, 2003, etc.) and facing eviction for refusing to get rid of “The Rott,” her faithful Rottweiler. News that her mother has suddenly died almost sends her around the bend. At the funeral, Nina is reunited with the older sister she hasn’t seen since childhood. After drab, domestic Sharon comes to visit, Nina returns home one evening to find both her sister and $19,000 missing. The police, learning of Sharon’s death, haul Nina in on suspicion of killing the ex-con and long-time grifter. The mystery’s ingenious solution connects Sharon, Theresa, James Dean, Chad Stonewell (remember him?) and an insidious cult.
Eversz gives Nina engaging depth, though the dense prose and grim story may turn off some readers.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-5015-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
