Routine antiterrorist high-tech thriller with a cooly complicated hero, well-researched settings, and frighteningly accurate knowledge of lethal technologies. What would suspense writers do without Saddam Hussein? Mad, bad, impossible to know, the mustachioed dictator has kept the tired genre alive. Here, Saddam, annoyed at yet another US-sponsored attempt on his life, pays Carlos the Jackal a king’s ransom to wipe out everybody who’s anybody in the American government by sabotaging the President’s Inaugural Ball at the Kennedy Center. The first hundred or so pages follow the sly but oh-so-impolite Carlos as he navigates the mostly out-in-the-open world of international terrorism, blithely laundering money, staying in great hotels, smuggling great gobs of plastic explosives past bored customs personnel, and finding the right fanatics for the job. But just when Carlos seems to have his lethal ducks in a row, the CIA and Mossad stumble on the fact that’s something’s up and turn for help to renegade agent Norman Richards, an ex—CIA man earlier bounced out of the Company for having an active conscience. Though newcomer Lichtman seems more interested in exploring the mechanics of mayhem than animating any of his tissue-thin characters, the endlessly suffering, quietly restrained Richards is a winner. Unlike Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy’s lock-jawed Åbermensch, Richards, for all his tough-talking and misplaced idealism, is a sensible, decent guy. As interesting as Richards is, though, he’s reduced to little more than an action toy as Lichtman sends him on a series of pointless chases that culminate in a surprisingly convincing last-minute rescue of Washington’s fatuous Beltway elite. Rigidly formulaic, and far too predictable, but Lichtman’s by-the-numbers debut proves that he can do a big-boys-with-bad-toys tale and create a believable hero to hang it on. The suspense this time, though, is lacking—you end up feeling sorry for Saddam. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8119-0870-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
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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