Primarily an introduction to the protagonist and his fortress, but its solid writing promises a worthy series.
An Arizona town’s emergency services director preps for a cyberstrike, while his daughter faces a menace of an entirely different kind in McDonald’s debut thriller series-starter.
The North Korean government unsuccessfully fires missiles at the west coast of the United States. It soon appears that the action was merely a precursor to a cyberattack, as various grids start shutting down. The story then jumps back two months to the grand opening of an Arizona police substation, complete with its own independent microgrid for handling disasters. It’s the project of Selwyn “Murf” Murphy, a former Special Forces soldier who’s now the program director of emergency services in the town of Tortolita. For years, Murf has anticipated a North Korean cyberattack, so he continues to develop his substation (colloquially known as “Fort Apache”), debating such additions as a stand-alone emergency room. Meanwhile, his estranged 14-year-old daughter, Dani, is living with her alcoholic mother, Murf’s ex-wife Louise. Louise’s sleazy boyfriend, Vince, who’s in debt to a drug dealer, persuades Dani to dance at the appropriately named Two-Bit Bar. When Murf gets wind of Dani’s situation, saving his daughter takes precedence over all else. Despite the title, there’s very little cyberwar in this thriller; much of the narrative instead focuses on the lead-up to the attack. News reports of various transgressions of the North Korean government create a feeling of imminent danger, however, and Dani’s seemingly unrelated plotline is consistently intense. Her story, in fact, features a character that’s even more indelible than Murf: Doc, a biker-club physician and former battlefield medic who befriends Dani and tends to her when she’s injured. McDonald maintains the momentum throughout by employing alternating perspectives of various characters and very short chapters and scenes. Although Murf gets few opportunities to validate Fort Apache, he does prove himself a hero in the action-packed final act.
Primarily an introduction to the protagonist and his fortress, but its solid writing promises a worthy series.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9993686-2-6
Page Count: 522
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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