A sober, unsensational "inside" account of the Orlando Letelier case, co-authored by the federal prosecutor who handled it from the day when the Chilean ex-diplomat and an assistant were killed by a car bomb in the middle of Washington, D.C. The title is apt. Sorting out the facts and running down leads (many of them bogus) took prosecutor Propper and a few determined FBI agents into a murky network of espionage and international terrorism, involving several bands of anti-Castro Cubans and the fight-wing Chile government's notorious secret police (DINA). Almost from the start, suspicion of involvement in the mechanics of the killing fell on members of a New Jersey-based Cuban exile group, and the guiding hand seemed to have been DINA's. But tying it all together took a year and a half. The key to the puzzle: a mysterious "blond Chilean"—named Juan Williams, or Kenneth Enyart, or Andres Wilson—who kept popping up at significant times. "Williams" turned out to be Michael Townley, an American-born high-level DINA assassin who specialized in state-of-the-art bombs and dabbled in biological weapons. Though the Chileans stonewalled and the international-relations bureaucracy cranked slowly, Propper Finally extradited Townley to the US where (reluctantly) the feds traded a ten-year sentence for his testimony against two Cuban exile defendants. Unfortunate footnotes: the Cuban defendants were ultimately acquitted at a second trial, two other implicated Cubans vanished, and the government imposed only wrist-slap sanctions on Chile. While Dinges and Landau's Assassination on Embassy Row (1980) covers the facts of the case ably and is stronger on the intricacies of Chilean politics, Propper and Branch provide more background on Townley (from interviews), and answer Dinges and Landau's lingering question (why did it take so long to crack the case?) with an unsettling, behind-the-scenes look at the lack of cooperation among U.S. government agencies that slowed the investigation and threatened at times to stymie it. Exhaustively researched, well-written, and spooky.
Pub Date: April 9, 1982
ISBN: 0140066837
Page Count: 660
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1982
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
