JAG fans and courtroom-drama enthusiasts will find enough of interest.
In Stone’s novel, World War I–era English poet Rupert Brooke has a startling influence on four students at the Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I.
At Navy OCS, James Drayton, an admiral’s son, forms a secret society, the Great Lovers, named after one of Brooke’s better-known poems. Drayton intends to reform the Navy, doing away with the elements he most despises at school, including hazing and cheating, though it isn’t clear why he chooses the other members, except for Tate, his roommate; the others seem unexceptional. They leave school after being posted to their respective areas of service, only to be brought back together when Drayton, an intelligence officer on an aircraft carrier dispatched near Taiwan to protect the integrity of an election, dies under mysterious circumstances—an explosion on the aircraft carrier killed five people. After the identities of the other Great Lovers are revealed, the four are court martialed as part of Drayton’s apparent mutiny; secret societies are forbidden in the Navy, and someone needs to be blamed for the tragedy. Defended by attorney Raoul Thomas, himself the subject of a court martial in his youth, the remaining Great Lovers are in a fight for their professional lives. Stone, also a graduate of Navy OCS, has an interesting story to tell, though the inclusion of naval terminology could have been handled less awkwardly. It’s a shame, too, that more of Brooke’s poetry isn’t included, other than a few bits of his biography offered by Drayton. Readers may wonder why the poet left such a big impression on the Great Lovers. While Drayton and his roommate are well-crafted characters, the two women are difficult to distinguish. Meanwhile, the book is something of a tribute to the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and Drayton’s attraction to heterosexual Tate is handled with sensitivity. However, the courtroom scenes are the book’s strong suit, although the surprise ending is weak. There are few dramatic twists or revelations, and readers never really learn exactly what was on Drayton’s mind when he died. His disappearance from the second half of the book, except as a discussion point, weakens the narrative power.
JAG fans and courtroom-drama enthusiasts will find enough of interest.Pub Date: April 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0985493912
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Fry Pots Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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