An accomplished thriller that will appeal to fans of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn.
In Bowman’s debut thriller, a former military officer tries to stop a rogue CIA agent from getting his hands on a Titan nuclear missile abandoned during the Cold War.
In 1993, Kirk Cule, a former Air Force pilot and astronaut trainee, receives the tragic news that his father, wife and son have been killed in a car accident. While mourning, he discovers his late father’s journals from the 1960s and begins to read through them. It turns out that his father, also an Air Force officer, commanded a Titan nuclear missile silo in Virginia that was part of a secret CIA operation. Kirk scours the Virginia countryside until he uncovers the abandoned silo and, with the help of a friend, works to get it back online. At the same time, readers learn the back story of Donner Bly, the megalomaniacal CIA agent who originally set up the covert missile installation. (The author imaginatively pulls out all the stops as he traces Bly’s history from the OSS in World War II to the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.) Bly escapes from the Supermax prison where he has been doing time for being “a thief and a traitor” and tries to get his hands on the remaining Titan as part of a blood-chilling revenge scheme involving a decommissioned Gemini space capsule. Kirk, however, has other plans. This thriller’s plot is somewhat far-fetched, but the author’s ready wit carries readers over the narrative’s rough spots. Techno-thriller fans will revel in all the details of Kirk’s prepping the Titan missile. Many thrillers neglect the human element, but in this case, the author consistently does right by his can-do heroes and outsized villains. He also includes an engaging touch of The Right Stuff and Space Cowboys as Kirk puts his audacious plan into motion.
An accomplished thriller that will appeal to fans of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn.Pub Date: May 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615755793
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Starview Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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