A thought-provoking prediction of where constant misinformation can eventually lead.
Rocke’s (A Twilight in the Morning, 2014) speculative series starter takes a dark look at a world of “fake news.”
In this volume set in the near future, Josh Cunningham is an investigator for the truth-verification division of an organization known as SEH. His job: to determine the origins of major news stories. As the novel opens, he’s assigned to look into the murder-suicide of a Canadian man who was supposedly infected with “The Disease,” the latest rumored global pandemic. However, try as he might, Josh can’t explain away the outbreak as a mere fabrication. While following up on another Disease-related suicide in Savannah, Georgia, he meets Jim Burillo, who offers his own conspiracy theories on the brewing epidemic. Josh then contacts his old classmate, research chemist Luke Baer, who won’t admit to what he knows about a suspicious group known only as CDV. Along the way, Josh’s division gets shut down, and some people whom he knows either die or disappear. Then Josh himself is abducted, and his kidnappers get him hooked on a new drug. As the Disease spreads, global panic sets in. Events come to a head as the book ends, but the conclusion offers little resolution. Some readers may wish that the author had wrapped up a few more plotlines in such a dense novel, and the fact that it takes nearly 400 pages to reveal the conspiracy behind the Disease is disappointing. Still, Rocke’s vigorous pace makes the volume seem shorter than it is, and it offers an important examination of what happens to the truth in a world full of fakery. When the average citizen believes in nothing, the book warns, it allows people in power to drive narratives as they see fit. Rocke also presents fully developed characters in Josh, Luke, and Jim, although the villains’ motivations are less clear—as they should be.
A thought-provoking prediction of where constant misinformation can eventually lead.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68433-420-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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SEEN & HEARD
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