Not for the squeamish, but skillful, often elegant prose compensates for a disturbing tale about an American mission in...
Cyrenaica—once part of the nation of Tripoli—becomes the setting for a historical novel detailing the brutal 1805 trek through the Sahara Desert during the U.S.’s first foreign military action.
King Yusuf Vartoonian of Tripoli (now Libya) has captured 300 American mariners and is holding them for ransom. When Yusuf has 10 of them beheaded, President Thomas Jefferson is under pressure to show that his government can protect its citizens. A deal is struck between the U.S. and Yusuf’s older brother Prince Ahmad, who is the rightful heir to the throne. If Yusuf is overthrown and Ahmad given financial incentives, the Americans will be released. And so, fictional 19-year-old Pvt. Lemuel Sweet, the earnest, intelligent central protagonist, finds himself with a small group of Marines and a collection of Egyptians, Greeks, Arabs, and assorted misfits of various nationalities trudging through the unforgiving terrain of the Sahara. Among the members of this disharmonious coalition is Gustav Ladendorf, a Swiss engineer and speaker of many languages. When the group’s Egyptian translator is found dead (with his body mutilated), Ladendorf steps into the role. The journey from Alexandria to Derna—to collect supporters of Ahmad—is marked by violence, death, and desperation, not to mention the presence of a diabolically sinister spirit (a djinn). As the march progresses, McCandless (Sour Lake, 2017, etc.) portrays Ladendorf as an increasingly enigmatic, malevolent character in this haunting, multilayered novel that explores the futility of war, good versus evil, and the dispiriting transformation of a man from youthful optimist to disillusioned soul. Told partly through present-tense, third-person narration and partly through Sweet’s lengthy, intermittent diary entries, this dark story with heavy supernatural overtones vividly depicts the heat, aridness, and mystery of the unending expanse of sand and emptiness that tortures body and mind. Here is Sweet describing the desert: “Great systems of Dunes have developed. They are restless creatures. They writhe and rear in the wind, constantly repositioning themselves, like sleepers troubled by Nightmares.”
Not for the squeamish, but skillful, often elegant prose compensates for a disturbing tale about an American mission in Africa.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-41572-6
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Ninth Planet
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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