A historically intriguing premise undermined by undisciplined storytelling.
A historical novel that dramatizes the infiltration of Canada and the United States by German agents in advance of World War I.
In 1911, Kaiser Wilhelm II is increasingly certain that war is in his empire’s proximate future, so he begins to make early preparations. He eyes North America as a good place to start, especially because he’s resentful of the United States’ rising economic influence in South America and the Pacific. He tasks one of his closest confidants to be his personal spy on the continent, with a mission to create civil unrest, disseminate false information, gather intelligence, and distract Canadian and American authorities from the tumult in Europe. That spy—who goes by many aliases, but “William Johnson,” his British identity, is the one he uses most frequently—is the novel’s main character, and the bulk of the tale is told from his first-person perspective. He’s assigned a dizzying array of missions which take him on a tour of the Americas—including cities such as Montreal, Toronto, New York, Boston, Seattle, and others—sometimes linking up with other plots organized by the Kaiser from afar. Debut author Kane ingeniously appropriates actual history in his revisionist interpretation; for example, in real life, the famous Halifax explosion, caused by the collision of two massive vessels, was falsely rumored to be the work of German agents; here, it’s retold as an attack that William arranges. The author’s scholarly rigor and breadth are extraordinary throughout, and he also offers the perspectives of Canadian and British authorities, often expressed through various official memorandums. However, the overall plot lacks focus and can be exasperatingly difficult to follow; Kane shifts quickly and often sloppily from first- to third-person narration and buries readers under a mountain of bewildering detail. Also, the dialogue is tinny, melodramatic, and riddled with repeated clichés: “The plot thickens!”
A historically intriguing premise undermined by undisciplined storytelling.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-2273-4
Page Count: 408
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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