Well up to Poyer’s excellent standards. No bluster, no dazzle, just real naval engagements that we may well see before long.
American observers sail into the thick of a vicious naval confrontation between the two Koreas.
Naval expert Poyer (The Threat, 2006, etc.) has already sent his hero Dan Lenson through nine realistic and frightening naval crises. They are always plausible situations, often in remote spots that are overshadowed by whatever big trouble the United States is in at the moment. This time the Medal of Honor–winner has been reassigned from his White House post to what appears to be lousy duty in the Western Pacific. Denied the command post he richly deserves, Commander Lenson is part of a team running joint U.S. and Korean Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) exercises in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Straight shooter that he is, Lenson throws himself totally into the job, coming quickly to respect the seamanship and dedication of the South Korean naval officers. Within a short time, he learns that the threat from North Korea is no joke. The weird totalitarians under their Dear Leader have been sending suicidal submarine crews to make mischief in southern waters even as the United States is secretly preparing to drastically reduce its forces in the area. On a break in Seoul, he participates in one of the spooky evacuation drills the Republic finds it necessary to run regularly to be ready for what they believe is an inevitable invasion from the North. Back at sea he rides out a typhoon and helps the Korean Commodore cope with the withdrawal of the Australian and American ships from the exercise. He has his own problem coping with the chain-smoking Koreans and the constipating shipboard diet. Then the ASW exercise becomes the real thing. Four of Kim Jong-Il’s subs and a second typhoon move into the area with murderous intent, and atomic radiation has been detected.
Well up to Poyer’s excellent standards. No bluster, no dazzle, just real naval engagements that we may well see before long.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-36049-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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