A fleet and dramatic, if far-fetched, tale of global conflict.
A political thriller that imagines a world brought to the brink of nuclear war by an Iranian plot to attack Israel and the United States.
Col. Arshad Sassani is a high-ranking Iranian intelligence officer who’s also a valuable informant for Israel. He’s been funneling the Mossad details about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and ambitions. After he reveals a plot to launch missiles against major cities in Israel (Tel Aviv) and the United States (Washington, D.C., and New York City), the Israeli government dispatches Maj. Yaacov “Jake” Rafaeli, a top Mossad agent, to extract Sassani. Israeli authorities believe the planned attack will be nearly impossible to prevent by conventional military means, so they hatch a plan to use a deadly biological weapon to pre-emptively wipe out Iran’s entire population. However, the plan would also affect the majority of the surrounding region—14 nations in total. Israeli scientists develop an antidote to protect their own people, and their government tries to blackmail the United States into assisting in the operation by threatening to release the virus on American soil. Then Shannon Parks, the deputy director of the CIA, brokers a deal with Mossad head Shlomo Mizrahi to take out Iran’s nuclear missiles instead. Meanwhile, Iran races to find and silence Sassani and arrest and torture his family members to assess the damage he’s done. Debut author Levy sets the story in 2028, a world that’s seen a brutal reprisal of the 9/11 attacks on America, ceaseless turmoil in the Middle East, and a bellicose Russia, still led by a ruthless Vladimir Putin. The prose is clear and crisp, and the action is relentless, fueled by a combination of brooding cynicism and the imminent prospect of catastrophe. Overall, this is a bombastic and cinematic thriller, so it’s unsurprising that it abandons any sense of political plausibility from the start. Also, the dialogue can be breathlessly melodramatic at times, as when an Israeli scientist describes the biological weapon: “Gentlemen, Plague Ten is truly the incarnate Angel of Death.”
A fleet and dramatic, if far-fetched, tale of global conflict.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73291-392-9
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Chickadee Prince Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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