Review by New York Times Review
#+ |9780061374043 |9780061374036 ~ A woman drowns in a pond, and her son is traumatized. SOME silences are caused not by the absence of sound but by sound suppressed, forbidden. These two types of muteness can have the same origin: the psyche, as Freud knew, can be more censorious than any tyrant. In Sadie Jones's first novel, "The Outcast" - set in a constricted London suburb during the late 1940s and the 1950s - the silences barely conceal the tumult. When Lewis Aldridge's father, Gilbert, comes home to Waterford from the war, he instructs his curious 7-year-old son to be quiet: a young child shouldn't be asking so many questions. But Lewis isn't the only one shushed in the interests of propriety. His beloved mother, Elizabeth, is also stifled; unable to adopt an appropriately ladylike, tight-lipped smile, she turns to drink. Even Gilbert finds himself clenching his jaw and submitting when his almost comically cruel boss casually insults him and his family. When Lewis is only 10, he suffers a stupefying trauma: taking a swim after a riverside picnic, his mother drowns, and Lewis is the sole witness. At the inquest, the boy just stutters when it's his turn to testify: "Tell me how it happened! Tell me! Lewis, tell me." "She sh- sh-" "Lewis, you need to try to explain to us what happened to your mother." "It's no good. Look at him." This exchange establishes a pattern of mute bewilderment overlapped with repression. To Gilbert, Lewis's mouth becomes a kind of wound, "open and ugly as if he couldn't close it." When living alone with his son becomes too painful to bear, Gilbert seeks solace with a new wife: a sweet but selfish young woman who isn't prepared to deal with Lewis's grief. Unlike Gilbert, "he didn't seem to want or need her." Lewis turns into a kind of ghost - a numb half person whose very presence upsets the town's phony politesse. Unable to speak much and finding no one to listen, he succumbs to a desperate, inarticulate anger that eventually gets him two years in prison for arson. Upon returning home, he realizes that Waterford represents just another kind of confinement. Only one person seems to understand him: Kit, the daughter of his father's boss and also an outsider. From an early age, she has idolized Lewis, so when he begins to self-destruct she blames the bullies instead of the victim. She suffers for it. Her father beats her; her coquettish and manipulative sister toys with Lewis for the thrill of it; her mother (who quietly endures her husband's abuse) maintains a frigid air of disapproval. But Kit's innocence and sensitivity are so ingrained that even her father's brutal blows can't extinguish them. BEFITTING a novel that explores the consequences of hypocrisy and silenced speech, "The Outcast" is written with economy. Jones's prose is plain, if sometimes mannered. And her influences are clear. "The weather made it look as if the broken buildings and people's coats and hats and the gray sky were all joined together in grayness except for the blowing autumn leaves, which were quite bright" sounds like the opening of Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms." Other passages recall Ian McEwan's "Atonement" and the movie "Far From Heaven." The novel even ends in a classic Hollywood cliché: a lover running after a departing train, breathlessly vowing, "I'll come and get you." And yet, although "The Outcast" doesn't feel original, it's consistently interesting. Jones's portrait of the claustrophobia and conformity of 1950s England is sharp and assured, a convincing illustration of the" dangerous consequences of a muzzled society. In prison, Lewis is convinced there is no place for him, that he is "wrecked." But when he returns to Waterford and tries to resume his life, he comes to realize that "all of the people who managed in the world" are also "wrecked people," that "everybody was in a broken, bad world that fitted them just right." Louisa Thomas has written for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and other publications.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
When Lionel Byrd is charged with murder, his attorney hires Elvis Cole. The PI corroborates Byrd's alibi through a convenience store security tape, but murders similar to the one in which Byrd was a suspect continue. Then Byrd is found in his small rental in the Los Angeles hills, the victim of an apparent suicide. Beside his body is a notebook with pictures of all the victims, taken at the moment of death. The consensus among the cops, the press, and the victims' families is that Cole freed a killer. Cole stands by his work and digs in again, but this time, his goal isn't to clear Byrd, it's to find the killer. The Cole novels are always thoughtful and entertaining, but sometimes a little short on mystery usually readers know who but not necessarily why. Here the killer isn't revealed until late in the game, and it's a genuine a-ha! moment. Mix in the usual sterling dialogue, the shadowy presence of Cole's sidekick Joe Pike, and an extended appearance by former bomb squad technician and semi-pro smart aleck Carol Starkey (Demolition Angel, 2000) for an intense and very satisfying thriller. Crais is one of the very best, and this novel encompasses all of his strengths.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
After earning a law degree, James Daniels quit recording audiobooks, but returned to read Crais's newest Elivis Cole and Joe Pike mystery (his previous Crais recordings include The Forgotten Man, Hostage, The Last Detective, Lullaby Town and The Watchman). It's a welcome return and Daniel's no-nonsense reading elevates one of Crais's lesser efforts and turns it into an enjoyable listening experience. Slipping back into these characters, Daniels easily distinguishes Cole's wise-guy banter from Pike's steely resolution, and he gives this outing's enigmatic villain, Lionel Byrd, just the right note of weirdness. A fire unearths evidence that someone Cole helped prove innocent of murdering a prostitute six years ago may actually have been guilty--and may have killed many other women. Cole and Pike dodge bullets as they dig around to find out the truth. A Simon & Schuster hardcover (Reviews, May 19). (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Elvis Cole and Joe Pike battle L.A. bad guys. With a 13-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The shooting of an apparent serial killer allows the LAPD to close the books on seven murders--but private eye Elvis Cole won't have it. Dead suspects don't look any more guilty than Lionel Byrd. In his hand is the gun that fired the fatal shot into his head; at his feet is an album with Polaroids of seven women who've been killed at the rate of one a year, each photo snapped moments after the subject's death. Homicide detective Connie Bastilla is only too happy to write finis to a troublesome case. But Cole, who produced the evidence that allowed Byrd's lawyer to verify an alibi for the fifth murder, isn't convinced. And he comes up with enough evidence to convince the seventh victim's brothers to quit beating him up and help him investigate further. The harder Elvis digs, the more Byrd's suicide looks like a murder whose evidence the cops are deliberately sweeping under the rug. But how far does the cover-up extend, and how high up are its beneficiaries? With some help from Detective Carol Starkey, late of the bomb squad, and his partner Joe Pike, whom nobody's ever accused of being too sensitive, Cole follows the trail through a string of well-placed twists to a satisfying climax. Some of the twists are more convincing than the last one, which leaves a few loose ends. But it's great to see Cole (The Forgotten Man, 2005, etc.) back in action. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
