A sensational cat-and-mouse debut thriller from O’Keefe involving the last potential heir to one of the richest oil fields in the world—and the ruthless conglomerate that wants to take him out.
Reporter Richard Steinman discovers an ancient deed in Austin, Texas, that contains a covenant giving the grantor’s descendants the right to reclaim ownership of the property if any future owner violates its restriction against the extraction of mineral wealth from the land. It just so happens that the land the deed covers is one of the richest oil fields in the world, and Helius Energy, the conglomerate that owns it, has no intention of giving up its gold mine to potential heirs. Steinman is soon on the run from a hired team of killers, while a second team descends on California to wipe out the last surviving heir, John Caine. Caine is unaware of his legacy but is quickly drawn into this nightmarish web in a race to stay alive and unravel the mystery that has put him in danger. His one link in the case is beautiful female attorney Andrea Marenna, who was unwittingly involved through her friendship with Steinman. Caine and Marenna desperately try to piece together the centuries-old puzzle as they struggle to outrun a sophisticated team of assassins whose mission is to permanently silence them. Helius Legacy is a first-rate action/adventure thriller that grips the imagination from page one and takes readers on a roller coaster ride with its many twists, remaining exciting and surprising to the last. Caine proves not to be the “soft target” the killers expected, but a formidable adversary with his own secrets, including his involvement in a covert operations unit in the French Foreign Legion. While often reaching deliciously larger-than-life proportions, O’Keefe’s plot is so well-crafted that it always remains plausible, and his experience as an attorney gives authority and credibility to the legalities. Ultimately not just a great page-turner—a damn good novel.
Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-1936909216
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Live Oak
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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