A well-crafted, highly readable tale about a quest to destroy a counterfeit operation.
A debut thriller tells the story of a team of agents sent undercover into Iran to eliminate a major source of terrorist funding.
Retired CIA agent John Farragut has a brain tumor that will kill him in the next 18 months. But he still has enough spring in his step to capture a terrorist at LaGuardia Airport after the culprit manages to blow up half a plane—the half containing Farragut’s father. The suspect is taken into custody, where Treasury agent Mia Kelly discovers that the man was paid to commit the act using Supernotes. “The Supernote is the world’s finest counterfeit American currency,” Mia explains. “It’s printed on the same paper as real US legal tender. Same ink and same process on the same type of press. But instead of buying baseball, hot dogs, apple pies and Chevrolets, these dollars buy terrorism.” Finding the Supernotes printing facility is the holy grail for the Treasury, and Mia immediately begins putting together a team of unlikely (and sometimes unwilling) agents to sneak into Tehran and destroy it. She recruits an Iranian-American master counterfeiter, an American explosives expert serving a life sentence for murder, an Israeli spy who knows Tehran like the back of his hand, and Farragut, Mia’s longtime on-again, off-again lover. It will be an incredibly dangerous mission, but like the men she’s recruited, Mia—whose only child was killed by a drunk driver—feels she has nothing much to lose. Adam P. Gross and Seth K. Gross’ prose is vibrant and snappy, portraying a heightened reality that often feels more like an Ocean’s Eleven sequel than real life: “Alson had hired the arsonists the week before; they were former snitches who had performed similar tasks back when Alson was LAPD. The fire had to be set by pros.” Even so, the novel is an entertaining heist story wrapped in a war on terror package, taking its characters seriously even as it lets the plot pull them in pulpy directions. Without devolving into camp or melodrama, this satisfying adventure remains gripping right to the end.
A well-crafted, highly readable tale about a quest to destroy a counterfeit operation.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9984622-0-2
Page Count: 461
Publisher: East Channel Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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