A well-paced thriller with enough twists to maintain momentum and provide an enjoyable ride to the mostly satisfying...
After more than 40 years, the coverup of a diabolical Soviet experiment begins to unravel, and members of the Russian hierarchy will go to any lengths to prevent its disclosure in Pell’s (Much More Than a Game, 2015, etc.) espionage sequel.
In 1974, the twin sons of British geologist Christopher Southgate were abducted during a visit to Oman. They were never heard from again, and they were not the only set of twins to vanish. Fast-forward to the present, and Jessica Gleeson, also British, in Minsk, Belarus, is poring through Russian archives to complete a paper in her field of clinical psychology and discovers that someone has placed a folder labeled “Project Genome” on her desk. Later, when Jessica disappears, MI6 in London takes notice. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Anton Adamovich is a rising political star who’s favored by the Russian president to be his successor—but he also has enemies. Pell has the action play out across a broad landscape that includes the Crimea, Odessa, Belarus, Moscow, and London, with a large cast of tough guys that are good, bad, or somewhere in between. It’s left to MI6’s Andrew Ball to uncover the mystery that is Project Genome. Ball, Pell’s recurring hero, isn’t an action figure; the elegant, 60-something, semiretired agent has spent months recuperating from injuries received in Pell’s previous novel, set in Eastern Europe. But when his boss, Daniel Davis, calls upon Ball’s Russian-language expertise to translate some Genome documents, he’s back on the case. Although he’s not quite the central protagonist, he certainly holds the novel’s disparate pieces together. Pell is methodical in weaving a complicated plot that brings together an assortment of miscreants risen from the ashes of the fallen Soviet Union—political hacks, newly minted billionaires, former KGB agents, and, of course, the women who attach themselves to the powerful. Overall, the pages are filled with murder and mayhem, and lots of vodka, delivered in fluid, comfortable prose. Fans will be happy to learn that there’s a new Pell novel scheduled.
A well-paced thriller with enough twists to maintain momentum and provide an enjoyable ride to the mostly satisfying conclusion.Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5246-2876-5
Page Count: 316
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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