by D.L. Gentsch ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2012
A broad, striking attempt to interweave money and politics.
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Forty years of political and financial suspicion and frustration kneaded into a semifictional account of government machinations, power brokering, partisan jousting and, always in the foreground, a complex economic debate.
Divided into four parts—beginning with the ominous “Seeds of the Beast” and ending with a portentous reference to “Voices of Babel”—Gentsch’s debut is told largely from Jude Anders’ perspective. First, he’s a civically engaged college student organizing Vietnam War protests, then an economic analyst at the IMF and the Federal Reserve, and eventually, he’s an advisor in the fictional present-day American president’s inner circle. In a socially and politically liberal voice, the book directly adheres to documented history through the Clinton presidency, then refers nondescriptly to a Republican in the White House for eight years, and finally presents a thinly fictionalized version of the last four years under a Democratic president named Mitchell Taylor, a single-term Native American senator from Colorado. As bright and capable as Jude appears to be, his career trajectory has a manufactured hue to it; while avoiding the draft in seminary school in Toronto, he meets Anton Tomasin, an articulate if somewhat cagey political science major around whom Jude is instinctively cautious because Anton has been raised by his adoptive parents in material comfort with privileged access to global movers and shakers. In the novel, a powerful, conspiratorial network influences men, markets and governments, all the while shadowing Jude’s progress. This conglomerate surreptitiously lurks behind the American curtain; along with the masses of uninformed U.S. citizenry and adherents to the Chicago School of Economics, they form a body of antagonists. In flashbacks and recollections, readers relive Jude’s reactions to and involvement in a string of significant historical events, including the violence at Kent State in 1970, the oil crisis of ’73, U.S. and international interference in Central and South American regimes, the attacks and aftermath of 9/11, and the contemporary debt crisis in Greece. Despite its lumbering pace, the simple, colloquial prose progresses with easy-to-swallow biographical turns—cute college girls; reluctant, ultimately joyful fatherhood; bitter divorce. The constant color of economic crisis and espionage, however, sometimes dizzily careens toward implausibility. Jude’s populism and essentially Keynesian philosophy would have been better served had Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman followers in the novel had an equal champion; instead, opposing forces tend to be uninformed, fatalistic or sinister. For the most part, though, Gentsch maintains an admirably nonpartisan course to inform and awaken readers to the significance of economic ideas and policies.
A broad, striking attempt to interweave money and politics.Pub Date: May 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475921793
Page Count: 516
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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New York Times Bestseller
by Tana French ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
An absorbing crime yarn.
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New York Times Bestseller
A divorced American detective tries to blend into rural Ireland in this sequel to The Searcher (2020).
In fictional Ardnakelty, on Ireland’s west coast, lives retired American cop Cal Hooper, who busies himself repairing furniture with 15-year-old Theresa “Trey” Reddy and fervently wishes to be boring. Then into town pops Trey’s long-gone, good-for-nothing dad, Johnny, all smiles and charm. Much to her distaste, he says he wants to reclaim his fatherly role. In fact, he’s on the run from a criminal for a debt he can’t repay, and he has a cockamamie scheme to persuade local townsfolk that there might be gold in the nearby mountain with a vein that might run through some of their properties. (What, no leprechauns?) “It’s not sheep shite you’ll be smelling in a few months’ time, man,” he tells a farmer. “It’s champagne and caviar.” Some people have fun fantasizing about sudden riches, but they know better. Johnny’s pursuer, Cillian Rushborough, comes to town, and Johnny tries to convince him he could get rich by purchasing people’s land. Alas, someone bashes Rushborough’s brains in, and now there’s a murder mystery. The plot is a bit of a stretch, but the characters and their relationships work well. Trey detests Johnny for not being in her life, and now that he’s back, she neither wants nor needs him. She gets on much better with Cal. Still, she’s a testy teenager when she thinks someone is not treating her like an adult. Cal is aware of this, and he’s careful how he talks to her. Johnny, not so much: “I swear to fuck, women are only put on this earth to wreck our fuckin’ heads,” he whines about Trey’s mother, briefly forgetting he’s talking to Trey. The book abounds in local color and lively dialogue.
An absorbing crime yarn.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593493434
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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SEEN & HEARD
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 2024
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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