Another in Ruggero's estimable series (Firefall, 1994, etc.), this time with hero Major Mark Isen, a veteran of combat in three foreign campaigns, finding himself in dubious battle at a Stateside post. When Major General Patrick Flynn asks him to conduct an informal inquiry into the apparent suicide of Michael Hauck (the General's nephew and a second lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne), Isen is more than happy to quit the Pentagon for temporary duty at Fort Bragg. Once on the base, however, the amateur sleuth is less happy with his assignment. While divorced Isen gladly renews old acquaintances with Major Sue Lynn Darlington, a comely helicopter pilot, and links up with a rookie CID agent named Terry McCall, he fails to gather much worthwhile information. Indeed, the paratroopers appear to have closed ranks against Isen, perhaps at the instigation of Hauck's battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Harlan Veir, hailed as the US military's new breed of warrior in a Newsweek cover story. Convinced that the official reports omit some ugly details on the death by gunshot of Hauck, whose body was found in the parking lot behind a topless joint known as Jiggles, Isen keeps digging with the reluctant assistance of McCall, a crusty young black woman who, despite concurring in his suspicions, cuts him precious little slack. Although he unearths suggestive dirt on Veir's smash-mouth way with the ladies, brutal leadership methods, and mania for getting even with anyone who crosses him, Isen faces further obstacles. Stumbling through a nightmare underworld, the sporadically inept but true-blue Isen nonetheless collects enough circumstantial evidence to force an 11th-hour showdown that allows him to save the honor of the Army he so dearly loves. An absorbingly different sort of soldier's story, one that turns on character as well as action and hints that lonesome Major Isen may have found a worthy new mate.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-89170-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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