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BUTCHER BIRD

High-tech thriller—sequel to the paperbacks The Ransom of Black Stealth One and The Nemesis Mission—featuring deadly, whisper-quiet, virtually undetectable UFO-like Stealth aircraft. Here, the French scientist and aircraft expert Roland Clement has invented a tiny robot plane, equipped with killer lasers, capable of seeking out and assassinating any previously identified target; he has sold his services to the Syrians, who call his plane a ``djinni'' and regard it with superstitious dread. Having perfected the device, Clement decides to make lots of money by selling his service to Colombian drug barons. For his first contract, he smuggles into the USA a nuclear-powered djinni fitted with a powerful UV laser. Fortunately, the NSA and researcher Ben Ullmer are aware of the djinni. By sheer luck, Clement runs into one of the NSA's operatives. But how to stop Clement, or even identify his targets? A cat-and-mouse game develops while the NSA try to catch up with the elusive Clement—still backed by his bemused Syrian sponsors—and the megalomaniac Clement grows ever more unpredictable and dangerous. Credible and entertaining, especially for fans of the previous books, and a definite improvement over The Big Lifters (1988).

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-312-85397-1

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Forge

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1993

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BETWEEN SISTERS

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

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

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