Remote Control

Name: Remote Control
Author: Chris McGrath
ISBN: 978-1-62901-105-9

by Chris McGrath ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 30, 2014

Readers initially intrigued by the story’s action are likely to come away with deeper thoughts on mechanisms of control.

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McGrath (Does Environmental Law Work?, 2010) delivers a thriller about suppressed truths and a secret organization bent on protecting them.

At the outset of this story, set around 2005, the heavy-drinking Sean McKenna finds himself at a Jerusalem cafe. Now in his late 50s, Sean spent some time working for the U.S. government as a linguist and cryptographer during the Vietnam War. He later turned his experiences into a book with “impressive sales,” and his current plans revolve around writing a novel, establishing contacts with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to “do some mild investigation,” and eventually achieving “the good life on a private Caribbean Island.” His grand scheme is interrupted, however, when he falls for beautiful archaeologist Faith Foley. Fifteen years Sean’s junior, she’s involved in an excavation that may lead to some startling religious discoveries. When a digger on her crew suddenly fears for his life, terrified of the secret religious organization Opus Dei, Faith sends him to meet Sean. But before they can converse, the digger is gunned down. Faith and Sean flee for their lives, but they’re quickly intercepted by a Mossad agent. Everyone seems to have the same question: what could a simple laborer have known that would get him murdered in public? Sean and Faith subsequently flee Mossad, but the plot thickens to involve the truth behind some aspects of Christianity and people who prefer such information to remain hidden. The action features a Blackhawk helicopter, hooded men with AK-47s, and a plethora of violent scuffles that keep the adventure lively. The portions of the novel exposing murky religious orders cover material that’s been explored in popular fiction before (as in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, a book Sean admits that he hasn’t read, prompting Faith to briefly explain Opus Dei to him). However, the story here ventures into even deeper evils. The dialogue is often obvious, as when Sean demands that someone “Find a seat and buckle up!” That said, some of the same character’s musings provide insights; at one point, he reflects that religion was once the opiate of the masses, but now the powers that be use “patriotism, fiery rhetoric and the means to deliver it to the people who still think they control their government.”

Readers initially intrigued by the story’s action are likely to come away with deeper thoughts on mechanisms of control.

Pub Date: June 30, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-62901-105-9

Page Count: 348

Publisher: Inkwater Press

Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.