by David Hagberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2005
Flat and stale but, given the tested loyalty of the Hagberg fan base, probably a hit.
A tireless thrillermeister evokes jihad again in his relentlessly formulaic 32nd (By Dawn’s Early Light, 2003, etc.).
After a one-book hiatus, Kirk McGarvey—“the best field officer the CIA has ever known”—comes off the blocks ready to Rambo. Good thing, too, because a certain black-hearted villain, Osama bin Laden’s operations chief—known to the intelligence community by the code name of Khalil—is out for American blood. So there’s Kirk and wife Katy on board the Spirit of ’98, accompanied by former Secretary of Defense Donald Shaw and wife Karen, set to embark on a one-week pleasure cruise to Alaska. Suddenly, there’s Khalil, accompanied by a cadre of gun-toting al-Qaeda terrorists. The mission: Kidnap Shaw and haul him before a kangaroo court in Pakistan in order to try him as a war criminal. Impeccably planned, the mission proceeds without a hitch until McGarvey’s ever-dependable back hairs prickle, alerting him to danger. At this point it’s all over for Khalil, though he can hardly be blamed for not realizing it, the odds being 15 armed-to-the-teeth thugs against a single unarmed McGarvey. Most of his henchmen en route to Paradise, Khalil slinks off prophesying balefully: “We will meet again and I will kill you.” Though this fails to strike terror into McGarvey’s stout heart—he is, after all, the stuff of superheroes—he believes Khalil means business. But exactly who is this Islamic monster? McGarvey does have an inkling. In order to pursue it, however, he deems it necessary to resign from the CIA and go on the hunt in the guise of an ordinary, albeit lethal, citizen. The game’s afoot—McGarvey vs. Khalil, the good killing machine against the bad one.
Flat and stale but, given the tested loyalty of the Hagberg fan base, probably a hit.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-765-30622-0
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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