The Cussler conglomerate holds the patent on the Don’t analyze, turn the page! manly action adventure.
Cussler (Piranha, 2015, etc.) charges co-author Morrison with chronicling another rollicking Juan Cabrillo adventure.
Disgruntled Ukrainian navy captain Sergey Golov has pirated Achilles, the private yacht of Russian mega-billionaire Maxim Antonovich. Golov's accomplice is his daughter, Ivana, a computer whiz. She’s also the infamous hacker ShadowFoe, which means she has the keyboard savvy to warp 30 billion euros into secret foreign accounts and then stall pursuit by uploading a virus to computers controlling the European electric power grid. Ivana’s virus is unbreakable. It’s based on math formulas theorized by 19th-century genius Alexei Polichev, whose papers were purloined during Napoleon’s Russian campaign. Daddy Golov will find and destroy Polichev’s notes while Ivana infects the network. First, she steals a few million from Credit Condamine. Bad choice. That’s the Oregon crew’s bank. Newbies get a précis on Cabrillo and his privatized CIA–like company and its floating headquarters, Oregon, a cutting-edge warship disguised as a tramp steamer. However, Achilles has been equipped with a railgun and a laser defense weapon by the same Vladivostok shipyard. Sea battles, anyone? Wait! Cabrillo must first foil the Saharan Islamic Caliphate’s nuclear ambitions. Then it’s nefarious deeds and heroic derring-do from the Monaco Grand Prix to Malta, Germany, Lithuania, Holland, and the Baltic. The exotic weapons–driven, more-threads-than-a-sweater narrative explodes with action, dead bodies hither and yon, with Cabrillo making enough skin-of-the-teeth escapes that he’ll need to visit his dentist. The cast is comprised of one-size-fits-all stalwart or malevolent characters, and the locations are anchored by spare descriptions of landmarks, but when there’s "only ten days to prevent the world from suffering a disastrous financial meltdown," the Oregon’s ready to rescue.
The Cussler conglomerate holds the patent on the Don’t analyze, turn the page! manly action adventure.Pub Date: May 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17596-1
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Colorful, but best for those who don't mind Picoult's heavily sentimental style.
Teenaged witches, DNA evidence, Megan's Law, belladonna-laced tea, and an honest ex-con addicted to Jeopardy!, all mixed up in a well-researched if slightly disappointing small-town legal drama by veteran Picoult (Plain Truth, 2000, etc.).
Honest prep-school teacher and soccer coach Jack St. Bride has just completed an unjust sentence for statutory rape, to which he pleaded guilty only because a lazy lawyer persuaded him to hedge his bets. Somewhat unbelievably, he managed to escape being raped in prison by telling the brutal Mountain Felcher, "You're not going to break me." When he stops in Salem Falls, New Hampshire, to begin anew, things start looking up as he falls swiftly in love with his employer, fragile diner-owner Addie Peabody. The fact that she "tasted of coffee and loneliness" upon first kiss does not hinder Jack, but the law does: as a convicted sexual offender, he's required to register with the local police, and of course they can't keep a secret. Before long, there's widespread paranoia about the "dangerous rapist" on the loose in Salem Falls. Foremost of the alarmists is Amos Duncan, head of Duncan Pharmaceuticals, the town's only major corporation. His ire is exacerbated when his weird daughter Gillian, a devoted Wiccan, sets into action a chain of events that snares Jack in another rape charge—this time not merely statutory. One-third of the way in, the story turns into a courtroom battle between civil-liberties eccentric Jordan McAfee and sanctimonious prosecutor Matt Houlihan. Picoult's depiction of the legal process is excellent, especially her intriguing and thorough explanation of DNA evidence, and the narrative is impressively complicated, with a couple of eye-opening surprises. A few of the resolutions, however, seem contrived, and when the language turns lyrical or metaphorical, it falls flat.
Colorful, but best for those who don't mind Picoult's heavily sentimental style.Pub Date: April 10, 2001
ISBN: 0-7434-1870-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
Twisty and propulsive.
A first date takes a sinister turn for a troubled young woman in Walker’s third psychological thriller.
It’s the day after Laura Lochner’s date with a man she met online, and she hasn’t returned to the Connecticut home of her sister, Rosie, her brother-in-law, Joe, and their little boy, Mason, where she’s been staying after a bad breakup. Rosie fears the worst, but Joe advises caution. After all, Laura is an adult and can have some fun, right? But Rosie has a bad feeling. Laura won’t answer her phone, and Rosie only has more questions after poking around online for info on Laura’s date, Jonathan Fields. Rosie eventually calls the police, and events begin to cascade like dominoes. Interspersed with Rosie’s attempt to trace Laura’s movements and get a handle on the guy she went out with is Laura’s first-person account of the actual date as well as enlightening snippets of sessions between Laura and her therapist. Laura’s is the most compelling part—a tormented, often prickly piece of storytelling by a woman carrying the pain of a horrible event that happened in high school and feelings of abandonment by a father who always seemed to love Rosie more. Laura’s desire to be loved is all-consuming, but her conviction that she is not worthy of love is heartbreaking. She sees subterfuge in nearly everything Jonathan says and does. Meanwhile, Rosie must come to terms with some ugly surprises of her own as she digs into their past. As the timelines inevitably converge, Walker’s clever misdirection paves the way to a truly chilling finale, and she has plenty of insightful things to say about the blame placed on women by society and themselves for the idiotic, careless, and sometimes downright evil things men do.
Twisty and propulsive.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-19867-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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