by Carl Hiaasen & Bill Montalbano ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 1984
Art-historian Tom Stratton is on a rather dismal tour of China—when he bumps into his beloved mentor, Prof. David Wang, a Chinese-born US scholar who's in Peking to visit his long-estranged brother Wang Bin, Deputy Minister of Art and Culture. A couple of days later, however, Prof. Wang is reported dead, of a post-banquet heart attack ("Death by duck"). But why, if the death was natural, is Prof. Wang's passport missing? Why have pages been cut from his diary? And why do Wang Bin's henchmen try to kill Stratton when he starts asking a few questions? Wang Bin's rebellious daughter, the gorgeous Kangmei, is eager to help: she overheard her lather and uncle arguing. Soon the two of them are on the run, fleeing from cobras, torturers, and other Wang Bin specials—escaping thanks to Stratton's secret guerrilla-warfare expertise. (He's a Vietnam vet, haunted by civilian-killings during penetration missions into China.) And by the time that Stratton makes it alive to Hong Kong, he has caught on to what's going on: Wang Bin, in danger of political execution, is going to use his brother's body in a fake suicide. Furthermore, Stratton has figured out how Wang Bin is financing his secret flight and new life in America: he has been smuggling Chinese archaeological/art treasures to unscrupulous US dealers—in the coffins of American tourists who die while on tourist-trips to China. So the finale here features a series of ghoulish cemetery confrontations—as Stratton seeks revenge on the ruthless Wang Bin. . . while CIA agent Linda Greer gets caught in the crossfire while trying to keep the whole ugly affair under wraps. Montalbano and Hiaassen (Powder Burn, Trap Line) bog things down a bit with Stratton's Vietnam guilts—a stale thriller-element by now, and one that seems out-of-place amid the Buchanesque folderol. At the other extreme, the least serious moments here verge dangerously on Fu Manchu-vian cartoon. Still, a solid, lively thriller for the most part—with an efficient (if familiar) central plot, action that's scenic and varied, and loads of wry, unromanticized China atmosphere.
Pub Date: April 23, 1984
ISBN: 0375700676
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1984
Share your opinion of this book
More by Carl Hiaasen
BOOK REVIEW
by Carl Hiaasen
BOOK REVIEW
by Carl Hiaasen ; illustrated by Roz Chast
BOOK REVIEW
by Carl Hiaasen
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
More by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
by J.A. Jance ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
29
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.
Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.