An entertaining series denouement that runs at full tilt.
Two newlyweds on their honeymoon, a hacker and a former Mossad assassin, learn of a potentially dangerous covert op in the 10th installment of the Spies Lie thriller series.
Stanford University senior Ann Sashakovich has just faced off against a rogue artificial intelligence, with help from the AI she and fellow students built. But now she has more pressing issues, such as choosing a career path and marrying the much older man she loves, Jon Sommers, a former Mossad operative. Amid ongoing classes and impending interviews with potential employers ranging from the CIA to Google, Ann must also persuade her adoptive parents to OK her wedding. They’re uncomfortable with the couple’s age discrepancy, and Jon is their boss at the U.N. Paramilitary Force. Then Mossad director Avram Shimmel reactivates Jon so he can help track down terrorists in Israel whose bomb killed hundreds, including Avram’s wife. Ann reluctantly agrees to accept the offer of an accompanying job as a Mossad hacker, provided she and Jon first tie the knot. Unfortunately, the newlyweds’ London honeymoon puts them somewhat near a dead drop in Scotland—blueprints for a military weapon linked to the bombing. The couple go on an Edinburgh whisky tour for intel—until someone desperate for a vital thumb drive starts knocking off tourists; honeymoon or not, Jon wants to get to the bottom of it. Kane (brAInbender, 2018, etc.) jam-packs his story with easy-to-keep-track-of characters, including returning ones such as Ann’s parents, Lee Ainsley, and the original series protagonist, Cassie Sashakovich. Moreover, narrative shifts among so many people make for brief scenes and a consistently speedy pace. The story lacks a few pertinent details: Ann and Jon’s trip from London to Edinburgh, for example, has an inexplicable 18-day gap. Still, it’s exhilarating to watch Ann’s intermittent displays of special talents, such as the ability to access the internet mentally, stemming from a prior nanodevice overdose. Although this book is said to be the last in the series, some characters’ open endings leave room for spinoffs.
An entertaining series denouement that runs at full tilt.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9996554-7-4
Page Count: 283
Publisher: Swiftshadow Group, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2020
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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