A none-too-bright protagonist rises (with a vengeance) to the rococo occasion in another overblown thriller from Jones (In Deep, 1991, etc.). Would-be playwright Chris Nielson and his baby-makes-three family have moved from southern California to the foothills of the Colorado Rockies; their lakeside A-frame, supposedly inherited by Chris's enigmatic wife Matty, is invaded of an autumn afternoon by a mysterious stranger named Frank Springer. Initially introduced as Matty's cousin, the glib intruder soon claims to be her husband and bars Chris from his own home. An outraged Chris gets no help in asserting his rights from either the local police or Matty (a lady with a past who fears for the safety of her infant son Nicky). At wit's end, he eventually falls in with CIA operative Sarah Rawlings. She offers to aid him in return for his help in killing a wily Russian arms-dealer whom Springer (a freelance hit man) let off the hook. Desperate, Chris accepts her bizarre deal and tracks his quarry to a mountain lair where he manages to best him in hand- to-hand combat during a blizzard. Unfortunately, the suggestible hero's troubles are far from over, since Sarah dies in the violent course of the successful assassination. With timely assistance from aging but adventurous attorney Abe Goldstein, however, Chris soldiers on while the homicidal Springer dispatches inconvenient witnesses and degrades Matty (to whom he was indeed married) with kinky sexual demands. At wearisome length, Chris and his estranged wife, sporadically in touch, hatch a complicated plot to slay their maniacal nemesis. Approved by Goldstein, the scheme involves luring Springer to Niagara Falls (where he honeymooned with Matty) for a cliff-hanging confrontation marked (among other things) by a last- minute rescue of little Nicky. An eventful thriller that's almost too silly for words.
Pub Date: Dec. 11, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-94231-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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