An engaging stand-alone thriller but also an intelligent addition to its series.
Ridenour’s (Behind the Mask, 2016) second thriller featuring Alexis “Lexie” Montgomery transplants the FBI agent from her New Orleans home to the swamps and mud of South Carolina.
Thirty-two-year-old Lexie’s Southern heritage and previous undercover experience working with extremist groups make her the ideal candidate to investigate a case near Pawleys Island that involves the Earth Liberation Front, an international underground organization that sabotages groups that it sees as profiting from environmental destruction. Allegedly, the ELF blew up a work site office owned by Global Resources Inc., a corporation constructing a bridge from the mainland to the pristine Spirit Island, the site of a planned “high-dollar resort.” Dwight Jacobson, the company’s CEO, belongs to a powerful Charleston, South Carolina, family that “no one messes with”—until now. Dwight’s estranged older son, Jeffrey, who goes by “JJ,” is a “hippy” out West; his younger son, Aaron, works “for daddy.” Lexie poses as a nature photographer and befriends Capt. Meade, an old river boatman. When the two spot a seaplane landing on nearby Cat Island, Lexie suspects the locale is being used for criminal activity. Meade tells her it’s an evil place, and Lexie’s cohort, Special Agent Don West, agrees that the island shouldn’t be explored. Ignoring them, Lexie goes there on a boat rented from handsome Logan Burkhart, whose eyes are “the color of molten chocolate.” Unsurprisingly, Lexie meets with danger on Cat Island and, later, on the mainland. Ridenour gives this thriller a vivid sense of place and a timely topic in eco-terrorism. Much of its authenticity owes itself to the author living near the real-life Pawleys Island and to her previous career as an FBI undercover operative infiltrating criminal organizations, including one comprised of domestic terrorists. Another plus, in addition to the novel’s realistic plot and believable dialogue, is its depiction of an aggressive, dedicated, and charming female protagonist. Tension effectively builds as Lexie’s overconfidence and overly trusting nature backfires, thrusting her into life-threatening situations and trouble with the bureau.
An engaging stand-alone thriller but also an intelligent addition to its series.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944193-94-2
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Deeds Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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