An impressive novel, brimming with action and history, with a lead character that has enough swagger for future adventures.
A filmmaker comes to terms with his past in Southeast Asia while battling denizens of the criminal underworld in this debut political thriller.
Video producer Christian Lindstrom has come to Vietnam to shoot tourism commercials for a high-end, Tokyo-based advertising agency. Together with Japanese-Vietnamese co-producer Nachi Tanaka and Vietnamese production assistant Hai, he scours the lush, historic environs in and around the city of Hanoi for shooting locations. Their work becomes bittersweet for Lindstrom, as he’s haunted by his memories of being an armed combat soldier on the very same streets. As the production proceeds through Ho Chi Minh City and Tan Son Nhut Air Force base, Christian’s attraction for Nachi deepens, but then she suddenly disappears in Hoi An, a port city on Vietnam’s central coast. She later appears in a ransom video on YouTube, seemingly at the mercy of two kidnappers who demand an apology from the Japanese government for a World War II massacre of thousands of the city’s citizens. The story goes viral as the clock ticks down to Nachi’s potential murder. Soon, Christian, aided by Hai and clever police investigator Bao, risks life and limb to rescue Nachi, but things take an unexpected turn, involving a vengeful Hanoi gangsters and police-protected Yakuza hit men. In a brisk succession of clipped chapters, Haggman, an advertising agency entrepreneur, incorporates vital snippets of Vietnam’s past into the framework of his novel. This sense of nuance embellishes the storyline, gives readers historical perspective, and gives the nefarious evildoers a purpose for their malevolence. The author also quickly ramps up the suspense when Nachi disappears early on. Overall, these qualities add up to a thrilling, fully immersive, and cinematic reading experience. The ominous, open-ended conclusion, meanwhile, leaves room for potential further installments.
An impressive novel, brimming with action and history, with a lead character that has enough swagger for future adventures.Pub Date: May 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9973137-0-3
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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