An entertaining suspense thriller, set during the last days of 1999 and featuring the discovery of ancient, explosive religious revelations in a series of scrolls. Wood has dealt previously with the spiritual odysseys of feisty females (The Dreaming, 1991, etc.), as well as with archaeological adventures. But this is also a tale of a pair on the run, and their adventures carry the story beyond its preachments, however worthy. Catherine Alexander, an enterprising archaeologist with feminist scores to settle—principally with the Catholic Church—finds in her Sinai dig six ancient papyrus scrolls containing not only the name of Jesus but also pointing to the possibility of women priests in the early church. To protect her finds from a greedy establishment, Catherine decides to smuggle them out of the country and enlists the help of her old friend Daniel, another archaeologist. To her dismay and puzzlement, it is a handsome young priest, Fr. Michael Garibaldi, who in turn comes to the pair's aid as a number of enemies close in. Among the pursuers eager for the scrolls: mega-mouth Miles Havers, the ultimate collector, and his lethal hirelings; the Catholic Church; the Egyptian government; and then, following Daniel's death, the state police of California. There will be two murders, pursuits and escapes, and deadly games via cyberspace as Havers's brilliant computer expert gleefully surfs to find Catherine and the priest. Between alarms (and a bit of forbidden passion) and mutual confessions, Catherine translates the six scrolls—the account of a first-century woman who had travelled the known world searching for ``the Righteous One.'' Visits to a quiet cloister (and its secrets) in Vermont and a Vatican necropolis lead to the discovery of a revelatory Seventh Scroll. The religious message here—mainstream unitarian with a mere whiff of New Age—is benign and appealing, but the pace is set by that ``pair of daring adventurers running through cyberspace . . . defying death, going for the prize.'' Fox and hounds with uplift.
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-316-81652-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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