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THE LAST ANGEL TO FALL

From the Jubal Stone series , Vol. 1

A powerhouse first volume in a supernatural-thriller series.

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In this first volume in an epic urban fantasy series, an American federal agent has to deal with hell itself.

The protagonist of Walsh’s ambitious debut novel is a depressed, down-on-his-luck Diplomatic Security Service agent named Jubal Stone who’s been “effectively benched” by his boss, who thinks little of him. Stone was once a special investigator for the Office of Asset Recovery (“a deliberately obscure name for what sometimes turns out to be very nasty work”), but now he’s bitterly resigned to life in Norvell Township, Michigan, where he seems very much out of the loop. As a result, he’s cultivated a kind of big-picture cynicism: “Earth itself was no more than a rock with a bubble of air surrounding it,” he thinks at one point, “a tenuous condition that supposedly existed at the whim of some unknowable and unreachable God.” God suddenly seems much more reachable when a supernatural meteor crashes to Earth bearing a fallen Angel—a mystical being who quickly becomes the object of Stone’s new job for the agency. He’s partnered again with his former mentor, Thaddeus Coleman, and tasked with safely delivering the Angel to none other than Satan himself. The pairing of Jubal and Thaddeus is one of the strongest aspects of the book, as neither is a typical hero: They were chosen for the job, one character says, because the agency had nobody else available (“They’re both capable, but neither has been on top of their game for a while now”). What follows is an extremely winning variation on the formulaic model of Dan Brown’s 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code that offers a compelling combination of interagency thriller and supernatural fantasy. As various agents either help Stone or hunt him, Walsh handles the action scenes in a smooth and professional manner, and the dialogue is similarly efficient. The author also pays his readers the bedrock compliment of taking his absurd premise—a secret partnership between the U.S. federal government and hell—completely seriously, which works wonders.

A powerhouse first volume in a supernatural-thriller series.

Pub Date: July 4, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-07-818665-0

Page Count: 563

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

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

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