Filled with explosions, multiple double crossings and distrust among the characters—all the ingredients for an unyielding...
A wrongfully accused government employee goes on a global trek, exposing clandestine operations and eluding men who circumvent obstacles with violence and murder.
Peter Graser, an analyst for the U.S. State Department, is at a party, keeping an eye on Irina Belakova, a woman who works for Russian intelligence but is being paid by the State Department for information relating to the Iranian ambassador to the U.N., with whom Irina is having an affair. Also in attendance is the assistant secretary for Intelligence and Research, who collapses and dies mere seconds after speaking with Peter. This is just the beginning of an elaborate series of events that ultimately proves to be a frame-up against Peter: an unsanctioned memo sent from his computer, a failed polygraph test and fingerprints connecting him to a murder weapon. Significant plot points accumulate quickly, but the story never feels convoluted. It’s more like a secret slowly being revealed, as details are introduced but not fully explained until later, such as Peter’s family fleeing Iran when he was young, how his family died and Roya, an Iranian woman he’s known since childhood. Peter’s association with Roya only deepens the suspicion against him. Their relationship is a narrative highpoint, their forbidden love and opposing political ideals making them an international Romeo and Juliet. Peter absconds to other countries, going first to London, where he investigates the hazy particulars of his father’s death. Once in the Middle East, Peter unravels a potential uprising, but on a much grander scale than he can anticipate. A steady pace is maintained throughout, and while there are more leisurely moments to piece together the ongoing threads of the story, there are numerous revelations and twists to throw readers back into the story headfirst.
Filled with explosions, multiple double crossings and distrust among the characters—all the ingredients for an unyielding political thriller running full tilt.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0615547695
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Silent Rivers Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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