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BLACK SITE

Name: BLACK SITE
Author: Dalton Fury
ISBN: 978-0-312-66837-2

by Dalton Fury ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2012

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Fury (Kill Bin Laden, 2011), one of the first soldiers sent in pursuit of bin Laden, pens frontline-action fiction.

Former Major Kolt Raynor, call-sign Racer, cashiered from Delta Force, is a drunk, fired from a last-resort job as security officer aboard pirate-targeted cargo vessels off Africa’s coast. Avoiding psychiatric counseling, Racer is drowning self-condemnation and PTSD in Old Grand-Dad. Always too impetuous for superiors, Racer’s gut-wrenching guilt arises from a mistake in judgment, a hard-charging decision that killed three members of his recon team deep in Pakistan’s anarchic Federally Administrated Tribal Areas. Worse, Raynor’s best friend, Lt. Col. Josh Timble, three more Delta ops and two CIA pilots were shot down attempting to rescue Racer’s group and are presumed dead. Three years since the snafu, word has come from not-always-reliable operatives that Timble and the others are alive and imprisoned in a forbidding Khyber region compound. The current Delta Force commander and a retired Ranger colonel, who is head of the private security company Radiance, have planned a recon mission to confirm proof-of-life. With that, Racer is yanked out of the bottle, put through merciless re-training by Delta ops who’d rather not be nursing a disgraced drunk, and then dropped into FATA to suss out the rumor’s validity. Fury is retired Delta Force, giving the action a rapid-fire, realistic air as it moves from Peshawar to Dara Adam Khel’s infamous weapon’s bazaar with chaotic intensity. Racer confirms Timble’s POW status. He also uncovers a conspiracy by al-Qaeda, the Taliban, rogue Pakistanis and Turks and a traitorous German to destroy a CIA black site. With sufficient back story and from-the-headlines references, Fury delivers a credible action adventure story. There’s minimal character development, and the bad guys are stereotypical, including Daoud al-Amriki, an American jihadist. More action hero than cerebral spy reluctantly wielding an HK416 carbine, Racer is locked and loaded for a series of adventures.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-312-66837-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

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.