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NO VACANCY

A gritty action tale with a central character who’s less compelling than those in his orbit.

A young man becomes a contractor for the CIA in this action-adventure tale.

As a 13-year-old in the 1960s, Eli Rose watches I Love Lucy, wanders the Miami streets and hangs out at the Gayety Burlesque. There he meets the polished, moneyed Vicente Amarón—the man has ties to organized crime, but Eli still wants to be like “Mr. Slick.” After Eli’s father dies, he learns that he is now accountable for a business loan from the mob and payback will come through his participation in a reckless mission, financed by anti-Castro mobster Morgenthal. Vicente becomes Eli’s mentor, teaching him, among other things, how to read people. After graduating college, Eli accepts employment at an import-export firm, and his connections are exploited by those whose faith in La Lucha—the struggle to free Cuba of communism—never falters. Soon Eli meets Robert “The Redhead” Jasper, a loose cannon who brandishes a .45 and bonds with Eli through a blood ritual. On orders from Morgenthal, Eli, Jasper and Vicente depart for Cuba and nonstop action ensues until the book’s final page. Some nice turns-of-phrase establish the setting—“The air was thick with the smell of jasmine and rotting trees, and it clung to Eli like clear syrup.” Eli is appealing, particularly in his relationship with father-figure Vicente, but as complex characters, Vicente and Jasper outweigh Eli. The young man’s allegiances may be misplaced, and at times he responds as if he is numb, in spite of the carnage around him. His driving force is “kill or be killed”—not the most original credo in the world, but understandable when body parts are flying. Pacing is brisk, but not breakneck, with tension building to an eventual face-off between Eli and Jasper—just how crazy is Jasper, and how far will he go? Although Eli confronts danger in various venues, readers never doubt that he’ll survive for at least two more books in the series, removing some dramatic tension. In future installments, Eli needs to evolve more, and command center stage.

A gritty action tale with a central character who’s less compelling than those in his orbit.

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2010

ISBN: 978-0966974942

Page Count: 327

Publisher: Robert N. Erlich

Review Posted Online: June 27, 2011

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

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

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THE VEGETARIAN

An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.

In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.

Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.

An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.

Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Hogarth

Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015

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