A fast-paced crackerjack tale, solidly plotted and a pleasure to read.
A team of adventurers searches through time for a missing Nobel prizewinner.
Former Army Intelligence operative Bill Culloden is asked by hedge-fund manager Jonah Markowitz to find physicist Henry Bryson, who was working on a trading algorithm to beat the markets. Along with Markowitz’s son, Ray, Culloden heads to Boston to question Bryson’s wife, Juliet, who discloses that she and her husband became millionaires—by sending buy orders for Walmart and Cisco back in time. It seems Bryson is dead—he died around 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem on a time-travel mission gone awry. After obtaining Bryson’s exact coordinates at his death, Culloden, Markowitz, archaeologist Dr. Robert Lavon and lovely Sharon Bergfield head back to the Jerusalem of Jesus’ time, where they encounter some lethally efficient Roman soldiers not completely convinced by their back story. The team crosses paths with Pilate, Herod and Jesus, as they fight to survive in a time of leprosy, torture, gladiator combat and crucifixion—and possibly corroborate the resurrection, if they live long enough. Among the book’s strengths, and there are many, is placing the reader at the scene of the days surrounding one of the most significant events in our history. The author creates scene after scene of people taking care of everyday business—bathing, preparing food, conducting religious ceremonies, caring for the sick. Another plus is a cast of characters motivated by the joy of discovery, rather than money, lust, fame or any of the typical self-serving interests. While the plot incorporates events surrounding Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, the tale never dissolves into a simple retelling of the Gospels. Once the action starts, it never lets up until the final page. Some nifty state-of-the-art gadgets would do James Bond proud, including an ear-bud all-language translator and a bandage that, after healing near-fatal wounds, disappears into the flesh. Although the story unfolds from Culloden’s viewpoint, this is an ensemble play, requiring that each character eventually take center stage. It all comes together beautifully for a satisfying, nick-of-time conclusion.
A fast-paced crackerjack tale, solidly plotted and a pleasure to read.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983841128
Page Count: 396
Publisher: David M. Epperson
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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