A paranormal thriller begging for a slot in airport bookshops.
There are secret agents and then there are secret agents, like the undead predator protecting the White House.
Debut novelist Farnsworth expands his cinema-ready concept for a screenplay into this rousing if ridiculous mash-up of spy stories and vampire vogue. Our point of view is provided by swaggering D.C. political operative Zach Barrows, who is rewarded for his service as deputy director for White House affairs with the weirdest appointment ever. Secret Service Agent Griffin takes the new kid into a secret trophy room hidden in the Smithsonian’s Castle, where a young, pale warrior awaits. Barrows soon learns that he’s to be the liaison to Nathaniel Cade, a real-life vampire who was drafted into service after he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1867. Cade’s role is to protect the country from ghouls and bogeymen that make al-Qaeda seem friendly. Like all good bloodsuckers these days, Cade can go out during the day and only drinks animal blood. “Someone has to hold the line,” Griffin says. “That’s what we do. We fight every incursion they make. They invade; we repel. Forget the War on Terror, Zach. This is the War on Horror. And you’ve just been drafted.” Farnsworth does an admirable job of integrating his clichéd creation into American history (Nixon wants to unleash his pet vampire against Woodward and Bernstein, but Cade’s deal precludes it) and into a juicy techno-thriller story. This first entry finds a rogue scientist, Johann Konrad Dippel (the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), plotting to use the corpses of American soldiers as weapons. The book, complete with clipped prose and wildly unbelievable action sequences, strongly recalls the supernatural thrillers of Matthew Reilly. Fun stuff if you like this sort of thing, but its amalgamation of concepts from Twilight, 24 and CSI make it feel like it was cooked up in a focus group.
A paranormal thriller begging for a slot in airport bookshops.Pub Date: May 18, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-399-15635-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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