The security services of several nations want to stop retired CIA hit man Kirk McGarvey before he can complete a lone-wolf mission to Moscow that could upset any number of geopolitical applecarts. Russia's economic woes and foreign policy setbacks are making the country's electorate restive enough to give the presidency to Yevgenni Tarankov, a charismatic Stalinist who campaigns throughout the motherland in an armored train. Gravely concerned that the ultranationalist could reverse the halting progress the troubled country has made toward creating an open, democratic society, Kremlin moderates recruit McGarvey to liquidate him. Now living in Paris with Jacqueline Belleau, an intelligence operative detailed to keep an eye on his movements, the hired gun reluctantly accepts the assignment. With valuable assistance from an expatriate computer whiz, he finds a way to slip in and out of Russia via the Baltic republics. Meanwhile, McGarvey's erstwhile masters learn what he's about and make a determined effort to stop him to preclude the disclosure that Tarankov earned a small fortune as a CIA informant during the 1970s. The CIA callously brings McGarvey's young daughter Liz into the game. A low-level translator at the agency, she jumps at the chance to do fieldwork and help locate her father. Liz soon tracks down Jacqueline (who has been outsmarted by her lover), and the two women head East. They remain several steps behind McGarvey (who's deduced that his target intends staging a May Day coup), and, on their way to Moscow, Liz is abducted by Tarankov's minions. In the nick, however, the quiet American foils the would-be usurper's plot and pulls Liz off the private railcar moments before government planes blast it to kingdom come. Another twisty thriller from the reliable Hagberg (High Flight, 1995, etc.)—and a welcome return for Cold War hardcase McGarvey, who's still a cunning devil when it comes to organizing solo operations across forbidden frontiers.
Pub Date: June 24, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-85028-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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