A long and winding road.
An Immigration and Naturalization Services agent uncovers what was really behind the arrest of an illegal immigrant that went awry.
With 26 years of experience as an agent for the FBI, Environmental Protection Agency, and INS, author Kading delivers a debut thriller that, initially at least, promises a timely angle in its subject, illegal immigration. An opening prologue becomes the crux of the case: on patrol in Chicago in 1974, INS agents spot a Argentinian who appears to be, in agency vernacular, a “wet,” or illegal immigrant. In the violent scuffle that ensues, the suspect is shot dead; but so, too, is one of the officers, and by his own gun. Thirteen years later, new agent Nick Hayden arrives at Chicago INS headquarters with “callowness in [his] eyes.” Hayden works with 54-year-old Joe Willis, a hardened veteran who greets the rookie with something between “indifference and outright hostility.” The pairing seldom moves beyond the schematic to develop the men’s characters more fully. Hayden, in particular, is only sketched in as a law school dropout who's put his personal life on hold until he becomes a top agent. He also remains off scene for long stretches while Kading works in routine and familiar subplots that could be interchanged with any number of other thrillers. Chief among them is one that follows Salvador Rico, who traffics in counterfeit green cards, sparking a turf war among gangsters profiteering from the wave of immigrants arriving in Chicago. With the appearance of each new character, Hayden follows a by-the-numbers approach that turns to expository flashbacks that put a drag on momentum and, as written, do a lot more showing than telling. The plot remains largely unfocused for a good third of the book until attention shifts back to Hayden who, it appears, is certain the 1974 killing masks a major coverup. As he endeavors to uncover the story behind the shootout, the second half of the book gains drive and momentum.
A long and winding road.Pub Date: April 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61373-625-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Academy Chicago
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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