A taut crime novel with a likable hero but that can’t overcome its structural issues.
Debut author Cameron reimagines two real-life plane crashes as the work of depraved contract killers.
Brad and Elizabeth Badger seem to be a normal couple in their early 30s, but it’s an illusion that belies their occupation. As the novel opens, Elizabeth is finishing up a contract hit on a Mafia don who’s exiting the witness protection program. Back at home, Brad has already received instructions for their next job; the orders and cash payments arrive via pizza box from a mysterious source who seeks the untimely end of a “Mr. X.” Elizabeth is anxious to quit her hit woman lifestyle and return to a normal life, but Brad convinces her that the $500,000 they’ll receive will make it all worthwhile. The two concoct a plan to kill Mr. X by bringing down a commercial airplane, destroying their fuel tanks by radio control. They’re due to receive another $500,000 one year after the hit is completed if there’s no homicide investigation, so they go to great lengths to make sure that the authorities won’t know the identity of the intended target or the cause of the crash. It all goes as planned except for one thing: National Transportation Safety Board investigator Art Campos comes across a photo taken near the crash site in which Elizabeth is shown laughing at the destruction. This single clue leads him on a jet-setting investigation, and the Badgers play a game of cat and mouse as they plan their next hit. Cameron reworks two actual unsolved 737 crashes from the 1990s to form the basis for his thriller. As a pilot, he writes with authority about airplanes and simulators and has a good plan for how the killers might get away with their mission. The novel is short and tightly written, with some well-imagined characters; as the hero, Art Campos is a perfectly likable, competent investigator. However, he could have been fleshed out more, and the book’s second half could have gone into much more detail about the investigators’ reactions to horrific plane crashes. There are also some annoyingly generic descriptions; too many buildings are described as “middle class,” for example. If Cameron can develop his future storylines and characters to a level worthy of the subject matter, his planned sequel may prove more satisfying.
A taut crime novel with a likable hero but that can’t overcome its structural issues.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490913834
Page Count: 136
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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