Impressive research, solid characters and a compelling plot held back by an excessive history lesson.
This historical novel follows a former cavalry lieutenant as he rises through the ranks in the British air force during World War I.
Lt. Michael Howard is dispatched to the front lines in 1914 as part of the 9th Hussars, a cavalry regiment, though a change in commanders prompts him to enlist in the Royal Flying Corps. As the war progresses, airplane technology improves by leaps and bounds, and as he alternates between the front and periods in England as a trainer and test pilot, Howard is promoted, wounded and decorated. Author Mercer fills the book with so much fascinating discussion of technology that his book almost becomes a historical techno-thriller. The research is excellent, not just on the development of warplanes, but also on the progress of the war as a whole. In fact, Mercer’s workmanlike writing seems so intent on creating historical context that the text goes too far with information not directly relevant to the storyline. Much of this detail could be left out or added in a way that doesn’t interrupt the plot. Only after 100 pages can readers begin to connect with the characters. Even afterward, frequent changes in narrative tone can be jarring and distracting from the main action. Elsewhere, the narrative unnecessarily foreshadows upcoming events and inserts clumsy asides on the fates of minor characters. The passage of time is often very fast and confusing, and though the characters are reasonably well drawn, a less breakneck pace would allow for some needed depth and development. Mercer also spends several pages at the end of the book describing postwar events, then alludes to a continuation of the story during World War II. Perhaps it would have been more effective to end this volume at the Armistice and leave the interwar period and World War II to their own volumes.
Impressive research, solid characters and a compelling plot held back by an excessive history lesson.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490529189
Page Count: 444
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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