I confess I am intrigued that
The Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, who is not someone who features an outstanding sense of humor, wrote that he couldn’t stop laughing at Seth Greenland’s (
The Bones) sophomore novel. The storyline develops as Marcus Ripps takes over his brother’s dry-cleaning business and, lo and behold, ends up running a lucrative escort service in Hollywoodcertainly a setting overripe for lampooning. Yardley
gushes:
Mainly, though, Shining City is simply pedal-to-the-metal funsassy and knowing and irreverent. It’s much too much of all those things to be pigeonholed as summer reading, but if you have room for only one entertainment this summer, let Shining City be it.
—
Robert Birnbaum, Jul. 21, 2008