It's Amateur Night on the international intrigue stage, as perennial bestseller Archer (As the Crow Flies, etc.) shows Saddam Hussein's henchmen grooming an actor to take the place of the President so that they can—push the button that starts WW III? Plant a bomb that will destroy both chambers of Congress? No, steal the Declaration of Independence! Actually, the actor, one Lloyd Adams, is much less important than his support staff: Tony Cavalli, the unscrupulous, well-connected lawyer whose off-the-books ``Skills'' department takes on the assignment of switching the Declaration for a copy that will remain in the Archives until Saddam publicly burns the original on July 4, bringing Bill Clinton to his knees; T. Hamilton McKenzie, the Nobelist in plastic surgery (!) whose daughter is kidnapped to encourage him to rearrange Adams's face; William O'Reilly (``Dollar Bill''), nonpareil forger who copies the Declaration exactly and throws in a few near- copies for good measure; Johnny Sciasatore, distinguished director whose fake movie motorcade of the President helps get the imposter into the Archives; and a contract killer in Laura Ashley dresses who goes around mopping up the rest of the staff. The Skills crew gets the goods, of course, and then the ``Mission: Impossible'' scenario is reversed, as Scott Bradley, a Yale Law prof and CIA hanger-on, joins rookie Mossad agent Hannah Kopec (who already thinks she's killed Scott when his earlier cover as Mossad contact ``Simon Rosenthal'' was blown: don't ask) and a giant, custom-made safe named Madame Bertha to sneak the Declaration back out of Baghdad. With all those copies and all those agents plotting at cross-purposes, you just know there are going to be multiple switches and surprises, but instead of generating suspense, they just add to the general air of genial preposterousness. Undeniably entertaining, if you can get into the spirit of farcical and inconsequential melodrama. Maps of the Washington motorcade route and the Mideast—just in case you have any questions. (First printing of 500,000)
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-017945-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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