A dizzying spy story for readers with clear minds and steely constitutions.
In the second installment of the Spies Lie thriller series, a covert agent reunites with his allies as intelligence agencies battle over a revolutionary tracking device.
Master hacker William Wing discovers that someone has broken into his Hong Kong apartment and stolen all the secrets on his computer—secrets that belong to clients such as Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Afraid that he’ll be killed as a result of the breach, he reaches out to his friend Jon Sommers, a former Mossad assassin who’s now working undercover in a German bank (and having a hot-and-heavy romance with fellow spy Ruth Cohen). The thief is revealed to be Cassandra Sashakovich, an agent with an unnamed American intelligence agency who had been ratted out by a mole, raped by a terrorist and is now running for her life. The data she made off with includes plans for a tiny tracking gadget that allows one to see through the eyes of the person who swallows it; naturally, many people would kill to get their hands on it. Sommers brings together his few trusted allies, including hardened soldier Avram Shimmel, to help Wing and prevent the plans from falling into the wrong hands—but whose hands are the wrong ones? Kane (Bloodridge, 2014) purports to be a former spy himself, and his extensive knowledge of the ways that the world’s governments wage covert war on one another shines through in his incredibly detailed prose. At times, however, these details grow overwhelming and make it hard to keep track of who’s spying on whom and why. However, readers who adore action-packed thrillers in the vein of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series will enjoy its many double-crossings. However, some readers should be warned: There are graphic scenes of torture excruciating enough to possibly make one’s stomach turn. Indeed, so many upsetting things happen to the main characters that it may be easy for readers to grow despondent about the state of the world by the time the story reaches its firestorm of a conclusion.
A dizzying spy story for readers with clear minds and steely constitutions.Pub Date: June 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0996059138
Page Count: 354
Publisher: The Swiftshadow Group, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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