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The Kindness of Strangers [Paperback]

3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)


Out of Print--Limited Availability.


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Book Description

December 1991
Julie Smith's New Orleans is not a city, it's a world--exotic, sweetly perverse, dangerously seductive. Nowhere else does politics make stranger bedfellows; and the approaching mayoral election is stranger than most, pitting the usual thugs and vipers against a seeming breath of fresh air--Errol Jacomine, a liberal-minded, civic-spirited preacher. The only problem is, in the opinion of Police Detective Skip Langdon, Jacomine is a psychopath and dangerous as hell.
On leave of absence from the police force, Skip becomes obsessed with exposing the frightening figure beneath Jacomine's good-guy image. Immediately, an anonymous army of spies and hatchet men go to work on her, and Skip begins to understand that in opposing Jacomine, she is risking not only her livelihood but her sanity and possibly the lives of people she loves.
Skip's instincts seem confirmed when the only witness to Jacomine's crimes turns up dead. Skip thinks there are more bodies buried in Jacomine's past, but it's the present she's worried about. And protecting one of her own against the preacher's evil sends Skip to the dark center of bayou country, where even the elements are her enemy. A deadly chase through the swamp during a fierce hurricane forces Skip to rely not on the kindness of strangers but on her own inner strength to survive.

No other novelist so brilliantly sustains the mood of ominous tension or raises the heat index as Julie Smith does in her Skip Langdon novels. Of them all, The Kindness of Strangers tears most fiercely at the heart.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dogged by depression, Skip Langdon takes a leave of absence from the New Orleans PD, but?Skip being Skip?the dramatic finale of the supposed rest cure nearly costs her life. To keep busy, she investigates mayoral candidate Errol Jacomine, minister of a multicultural church who is seen as an honest champion of society's underdogs. Skip, however, has long thought him to be a manipulative psychopath. She tries to contact a disaffected ex-member of Jacomine's church but learns that the woman is already dead. Soon, the police station is flooded with calls complaining of Skip's persecution of the good reverend. Skip's oldest friend calls, endorsing Jacomine, and Boo Leydecker, her new therapist, terminates their sessions because her husband is Jacomine's press agent. Skip begins to feel as though the man is everywhere, controlling reality. Nor is there much comfort on the home front, as Sheila Ritter, ward of Skip's best friend, is drawn into a worrying friendship that, like all roads in this story, eventually leads back to Jacomine. Although that aspect of the plotting does occasionally strain credibility, its claustrophobic impact effectively reflects Skip's frame of mind. Even more intriguing is Smith's (House of Blues) exploration of how difficult it is to hang on to reality, especially when surrounded by others who construct their realities (personal and public) out of comforting fictions.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Smith began her tour of the mystery beat with such novels as The Sourdough Wars (1984) before catching her stride with the Edgar Award-winning series featuring New Orleans detective Skip Langdon. Now Langdon must prevent a psychopathic New Orleans mayoral candidate from coming to power.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books (December 1991)
  • ISBN-10: 9992091657
  • ISBN-13: 978-9992091654
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Author of the Skip Langdon and Talba Wallis mystery series; Edgar-winner; New Orleans resident.

Also founder of www.booksBnimble.com, an electronic publishing start-up, and author of the YA paranormal adventure, CURSEBUSTERS!

Latest adventure:
I've reworked my writing class as an ebook called WRITING YOUR WAY (http://amzn.to/o6XN3T), with special emphasis on first chapters and marketing. You can see The Prose Nazi video below for an idea of my approach--i.e. flexible; designed to find YOUR best writing method, not force mine on you. We also have outtakes for your amusement. The third video, which I'll call GTFA, is a trailer for a fun parody book booksBnimble couldn't resist doing one rainy afternoon. Check out my websites, www.cursebustersbook.com, www.booksBnimble,com (where I also blog) and www.casamysterioso.com.


 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Never depend on the kindness of strangers, April 11, 1998
By A Customer
Officer Skip Langdon is back, but she's not quite who she used to be, she's on a leave of absence from the New Orleans Police Department. A recent assignment has left her a bit tattered and torn. She's lost some of her humor and strength, characteristics that made Skip so lovable. Now she's tormented by a new evil, a preacher running for Mayor, that she is convinced is a cold blooded killer. Enter Errol Jaccomine, a charismatic man, leading his flock. His followers are more cultists than parishoners and his expectations of them are way beyond that of a traditional religious leader. And while many see him as a savior for the corrupt New Orleans, Skip sees a sadistic manipulator who just wants more power.

Smith has created a complex villian. who we will no doubt see again, as he embodies everything Skip is not. His character is evil incarnate and every scene he is in is at once riviting and repulsive. My reservation is that Skip seems to be losing herself in this latest story and that would be a crime.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and engrossing, March 21, 1999
By A Customer
This is less a whodunit than a thriller, since it's clear from the start who the Bad Guy is. But that doesn't make it any less entertaining.

It's true, as another reveiwer says, that Skip is less confident in this novel. But to me, this adds rather than detracts. Skip's uncertainty, false starts, and growing fear are realistic, and her sense of doubting her own reality increases the tension in the novel.

As often happens when reading series novels, the side plots and secondary characters often are more interesting than the primary puzzle. Smith's teenagers are particularly good -- she seems to me to be that rare adult who hasn't been struck with nostalgic amnesia about the pain of being a 15-year-old girl.

Beware, the ending does not "sew up" all the loose ends, so you'll have to be ready to move on to the next one in a hurry!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Steamy New Orleans and vivid characters, June 2, 2004
Struggling with depression over a shooting from her last case, New Orleans police detective Skip Langdon is forced to take a leave of absence, freeing her to pursue her obsession with mayoral candidate Errol Jacomine in Edgar Award-winner Smith's sixth in the series.

Jacomine, a liberal, civic-minded preacher in almost everybody's book, strikes Langdon as a dangerous psychopath. When her initial probes spur a relentless telephone campaign against her, complete with innuendo, slander and heated defenses of Jacomine, even Langdon is taken aback. But not deterred.

Smith's narrative weaves among the viewpoints of various characters, giving the reader an inside view of Jacomine's headquarters, civic projects and a converging subplot involving a doomed romance between an unhappy teenager and Jacomine's new press secretary.

As Langdon exposes Jacomine's past, the press secretary's misgivings about his boss and his illicit love collide. The climax rushes toward murder and kidnapping, culminating in a harrowing chase through bayou country in the midst of a hurricane.

Smith delves deeply into the hearts and psyches of her characters, letting their human motivations drive the plot. Her New Orleans is, as always, a vividly evoked cauldron of beauty, political corruption, cultural richness and steamy heat. Her plot hums with tension but it's Smith's seamlessly perceptive writing that sets this novel apart from the crowd.

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