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Public Offerings Book 1: Birthright

In LiVolsi’s debut thriller, a Colorado pharmaceutical firm may hold the key to eradicating AIDS, but powerful people are willing to kill countless others to find the AIDS cure.
Dave Clement, a vice president at Prodeus, Inc., has been working with the Aldrich Institute in using the Portable DNA Analyzer in West Africa; it identifies candidates for a malaria vaccine and ensures that those who are HIV-positive were infected prior to their vaccination for malaria. But Aldrich Executive Director Claire McQuaid may have another agenda; she hopes to include a Trojan horse in the vaccine to combat HIV. The Trojan horse isn’t ready and will kill patients in mere months, but Claire and her colleague Eldridge Perry are only concerned with wiping out AIDS—they believe those who die are expendable. While Dave searches for a way to save his daughter, Liv, who’s contracted HIV, and repair his fractured family, Sheila Stratemeier, the institute’s lead developer for the malaria vaccine, tries to warn anyone she can about the potential deaths of thousands. LiVolsi’s novel, the first in a series of four, is a densely plotted thriller that churns out suspenseful scenes: Civil unrest in Nigeria and Sierra Leone is lucidly detailed with relentless explosions, and even Dave’s racing to Liv’s volleyball game is tense. Characters are refreshingly intricate. Protagonist Dave isn’t a flawless hero; he seems to be an obsessive workaholic. The bad guys are even better; they’re villainized by their actions, but while Eldridge is undoubtedly menacing, Claire is tortured, so mentally distraught by her scarred body that she rejects intimacy. As the start of a series, the book establishes a labyrinthine plot that never quite catches up to itself. There’s much more teased in Book One than questions answered, from the unknown manner in which Liv contracted HIV and the source of her apparent hallucinations to the fates of numerous characters in West Africa.

A terrific launch for the author’s series, but readers may want to have the sequels handy.

Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2013

ISBN: 978-0976944652

Page Count: 152

Publisher: Fifth Book Ltd

Review Posted Online: July 9, 2014

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

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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