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The Good Spy Dies Twice

From the The Bullseye Series series , Vol. 1

So many twists it’s practically gyrating, but an undeniably spry and rousing espionage tale.

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A disgraced journalist tackles a story his newlywed wife had been covertly researching, involving Russians, spies, and murder at an Alaskan ski resort in this thriller.

It’s been three years since Jake Boxer’s career-ending rant on his news show, Bullseye, arguing that Russians killed soundman Brody White for his audio evidence of a secret intelligence project. Having moved on from the news world and planning to take the LSAT, Jake’s now on his honeymoon in Blind River, Alaska, with former producer and Brody’s fiancee, Claire O’Donnell. Claire, however, now a travel writer, may be working on a big story. Not that she’ll tell her husband anything—Jake’s left to wonder why she disappears for a few hours their first day and later doesn’t answer texts. The following day, Jake spots Claire boarding the ski lift with an unfamiliar snowboarder and grabs a ride a few seats behind them. Shockingly, the steel cable snaps, and skiers, including Jake and Claire, plummet to the ground below. An injured, temporarily wheelchair-bound Jake returns to the hotel alone, only to be surprised by Claire’s iPhone, which she’d used to monitor rooms she’d evidently bugged. Hoping to divine Claire’s subject matter, Jake sifts through theories, from a just-executed man claiming to be a CIA assassin to a Russian artist and her much-desired painting. The convoluted plot, a hotel filled with villains or possibly none at all, is surprisingly focused almost exclusively from Jake’s perspective. Jake, for starters, is definitely likable, earning Claire’s love and support by abandoning his “first wife,” Bullseye. But readers know only what Jake does, so even if he’s merely paranoid, his various conjectures on what’s happening epitomize a dedicated man piecing together a puzzle. The narrative, too, fittingly relays his emotional state: Jake’s hatred of the chairlift is ultimately well-founded, while repeated back spasms make simple tasks arduous experiences. The likelihood of being surrounded by spies and/or killers gives the tale an unnerving edge, but Hosack (Identity, 2012) injects some humor. For example, when concierge and (probable) ally Al asks about the targets of Claire’s extensive eavesdropping, Jake, perhaps prematurely, assures him, “Just the bad guys.”

So many twists it’s practically gyrating, but an undeniably spry and rousing espionage tale.

Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-9978505-2-9

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Wide Awake Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016

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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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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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