More wild, violent adventures in the world of international espionage.
In the fifth installment of the Spies Lie series, former covert operative Cassandra Sashakovich is finally ready to settle down with her family, though a plot to start World War III threatens to pull her back into danger.
At the conclusion of the fourth installment, GrayNet (2014), Cassie had barely survived being shot by an assassin determined to collect a bounty placed on her head. As she recovers both physically and mentally, Cassie, her boyfriend, Lee, and their adopted teenage daughter, Ann, plan for a new life in a new city under new identities. Hopefully, none of their old enemies—many of whom are still hungry for revenge—will find them. Cassie decides to sell her consulting agency, The Swiftshadow Group, to the Israeli mercenary Avram Shimmel and to finally put her obsession with great food to good use by opening a restaurant. Yet an obstacle arrives in the form of Amos Mastoff, the U.S. vice president who becomes president when the president-elect is assassinated the day after the election. Mastoff plans to make Christianity the sole religion in the world by wiping out Israel and the rest of the Middle East via a few well-placed suitcase nukes obtained from a Russian arms dealer. The Swiftshadow Group must utilize all of their very special skills to stop Mastoff and his cronies before they wipe out half the world. To do that, they need Cassie’s talents as a hacker. Author Kane shows no sign of running out of wild plot twists and corrupt figures out to destroy Cassie, not to mention the world. Eagle-eyed readers might spot one or two inconsistencies from the previous books, but for the most part, readers will be swept away on the tidal wave of sexy, espionage-laced prose. Ann, Cassie’s teenage daughter, remains the weak link among the large ensemble of colorful and incredibly damaged characters; she has her adopted mom’s knacks for hacking and wild sex but none of the charisma that makes the audience root for Cassie. However, Ann’s unfortunate presence is pleasantly counterbalanced by the reappearances of some seemingly forgotten central characters from the pre-Cassie books in the series.
More wild, violent adventures in the world of international espionage.Pub Date: June 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9862321-2-1
Page Count: 316
Publisher: The Swiftshadow Group
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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