It's 1945, and the focus of this readable and absorbing first thriller is a Nazi commando in the US with direct orders from Hitler to assassinate President Roosevelt. Variations of this story have been told before, of course, whether the intended victim was de Gaulle or Churchill or the president. We know the effort doesn't succeed, so the trick lies in the telling: Why does the villain fail? Former newsman Davis keeps the reader guessing about that with a few nifty twists. William Miller (nÇ Wilhelm Mueller) is a most competent agent, rapidly insinuating himself into the populace of Warm Springs, Ga., FDR's popular retreat, and putting into place a well-designed plan that will draw FDR into a death trap. When the OSS learns of the plot, the only man in the U.S. intelligence community who can identify Mueller is young officer Jack Cole, whom Mueller shot and left for dead in a Belgian forest during a brutal massacre of captured American troops. Cole is a relatively bland character compared to the would-be killer, who's human enough almost to decide to turn his back on his mission—until the firebombing of Dresden, which kills his mother, strengthens his resolve. But Cole's story is fascinating because of the self-serving efforts of J. Edgar Hoover to promote the FBI, even if it means risking the president's life. This subplot ties in nicely with Davis's neatest touch: Rather than acting solely alone, Mueller is supported by a pair of fellow spies, in place for years, who implement several false attacks that lead the Secret Service virtually to deliver the president to his killer. Many readers may anticipate the final surprise, but few will be disappointed by this engrossing read. Very plausible, very possible, and very well done.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-55750-157-2
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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