Still, McGarvey seems to have lost some edge. He has fantasies of becoming a Voltaire scholar, and anxieties about looming...
The bad guys have this secret weapon of mass destruction and want to vaporize the good guys with it. So what else is new? In Hagberg’s 13th Kirk McGarvey thriller, not much.
Saudi Arabian billionaire Osama bin Laden is a religious zealot who, as all veteran technothriller readers would know even if they hadn’t read last year’s real-life headlines, hates the US. Mind you, it’s not just talk. He has a terrorist record of considerable distinction: embassies blown to smithereens, noncombatants attacked broadcast, a full range of blood-curdling activity directed against American innocents abroad. And all this before he really had cause. Now, against the advice of the CIA’s McGarvey, deputy director of operations, the White House has gone ahead with a plan to destroy bin Laden’s Afghan headquarters. When bin Laden escapes, but his young daughter doesn’t, it’s jihad time. In retaliation, the Muslim leader orders the murder of the President’s young daughter and, for good measure, McGarvey’s. He sends his chief of staff, the devious, unprincipled Bahmad, to the US equipped with a Russian nuclear demolition device code-named Joshua’s Hammer. This one-kiloton killer weighs only 90 pounds, fits easily into a suitcase, and if exploded over Los Angeles, where both daughters are visiting, will take out the targets and upwards of a million more as bonus. Time is running out; no one knows where bomb and bomber are hiding. But is “the best field officer the CIA has ever known” daunted by the odds? Well, did Rambo join the Million Mom March? Battered, shot, and otherwise mangled, McGarvey locates the villain, deactivates the nuke, and once again (White House, 1999, etc.) earns the thanks of a grateful, if slightly addled, nation.
Still, McGarvey seems to have lost some edge. He has fantasies of becoming a Voltaire scholar, and anxieties about looming grandfatherhood. Somebody should give the guy a rest.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-86128-1
Page Count: 413
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.
A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.
Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the too-pat conclusion.
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-293617-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. "Superflu" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization—excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God—or the Devil. The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as "the dark man" or "the Walking Dude" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fans will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1978
ISBN: 0307743683
Page Count: 1450
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1978
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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