In Warburton’s debut novel, a village massacre in Vietnam by U.S. operatives ignites new violence 30 years later, and reunites a lone survivor with her rescuer.
Tom Warburton is a member of the British army who’s been living under an assumed identity in Australia for the past three decades. He was forced into this exile after his small Special Air Service unit killed a band of CIA-led soldiers in Vietnam who were attempting to brutalize a young Vietnamese girl—the only survivor of a village the Americans destroyed. The CIA, however, blames the village massacre on Tom’s unit. After Tom went into hiding, his only comfort was a secret correspondence with Sue, the girl he helped rescue, who’s now a member of the Malaysian Secret Service. She and Tom carry on a long-distance romantic relationship. But the promotion of Richard Macauley, the son of an agent killed that infamous day in the jungle, means that Tom and Sue are once again in the CIA’s crosshairs. As the couple avoids Richard’s vengeance, they get a chance to expose the horrors perpetrated on Sue’s family, and also finally live a life together. Warburton’s debut thriller hits all the usual thriller notes, taking its characters to locations all over the world for hushed conversations and violent confrontations. The CIA operatives make truly despicable villains; although not all of Macauley’s agents are as malevolent as he is, their cutthroat methods are no less sickening. The novel manages to capture the tangible regret in Tom and Sue’s relationship; the time that they’re forced to live apart feels tragic, even when compared to the destruction of the village. Despite this, the book is plagued by subject and tense confusion, inconsistent and often incorrect punctuation (“Is the girl OK Tom. Get her to safety mate for me”), and numerous, distracting typos (“We are human as well mam”). Run-on sentences are common, but not in a way that suggests any unique narrative voice, and the end result is an inscrutable tangle that works against the suspense.
A promising premise, lost in clumsy prose that fosters more confusion than intrigue.
Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483649597
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Edgar’s own story in the present is more compelling than the revelations of the key’s past, and the novel might have been...
The prolific master of psycho-horror returns to the mysteries of the creative process, a subject that has inspired some of his most haunting work.
This could be considered a companion piece to The Shining, offering plenty of reversals on that plot. In both cases, isolation has severe effects on the psyche of an artist, yet where the former novel found its protagonist in a lethal state of writer’s block, the latter sees a one-time building magnate transformed into an impossibly prolific and powerful painter, due to circumstances beyond his control. And where the isolation in the former had a family cut off from society by a frigid northern winter, the setting of the latter is a mysterious Florida key, lush and tropical in its overgrowth, somehow immune to commercial development. A self-made millionaire, Edgar Freemantle narrates the novel in a conversational, matter-of-fact tone. He explains how a job-site accident cost him his arm, his sanity (during the early part of an extended recuperation) and his wife (whom he had physically threatened after the accident transformed him into something other than himself). What he gained was a seemingly inexplicable command as a visual artist, particularly after his recuperation (from both his accident and his marriage) takes him to the isolated Duma Key, where the only other inhabitants are an elderly, wealthy woman and her caretaker. It seems that all three have suffered severe traumas that bond them and that perhaps have even drawn them together. Soon Edgar discovers that his art has given him the power not only to predict the future, but to transform it. He ultimately pays a steep price for his artistic gifts, particularly as his investigation of the mysteries of Duma Key lead him to discover the tragic origins of his artistic vision.
Edgar’s own story in the present is more compelling than the revelations of the key’s past, and the novel might have been twice as powerful if it had been cut by a third, but King fans will find it engrossing.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5251-2
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
No one captures the flavor and experience of a summer place—the outdoor showers, the seafood, the sand in the...
A celebrity chef’s sudden death leaves his widow, exes, children, and best friend in a quandary.
And since this is a Hilderbrand novel, is there any doubt that the dilemma involves Nantucket real estate? A somewhat dilapidated (or at least, dated) and decidedly downscale beachfront cottage known as American Paradise serves as plot driver and central symbol. As his success grew, Chef Deacon Thorpe bought the house with his first wife, Laurel, as a repository of happy memories for his son, Hayes—the kind that Deacon himself had been denied. (He had one idyllic day on Nantucket with his own father, who then mysteriously and permanently disappeared.) Deacon and Laurel never wanted to upgrade the house, and there are still reminders of earlier inhabitants, including a ghost supposedly occupying the smallest attic room. Now, Deacon has died (on the cottage’s back deck, of a coronary), leaving nothing but debt. American Paradise is facing foreclosure due to the three mortgages Deacon took out, unbeknownst to his family. Surprisingly, or perhaps not given Deacon’s (and Hilderbrand’s) sense of humor, he has left the place to his three spouses, current and former—Laurel, Belinda, the movie star he left her for, and official widow Scarlett, the Southern belle who was the nanny for his and Belinda's adopted daughter, Angie. Best friend Buck, Deacon’s long-suffering fiduciary, has called the wives and children to American Paradise to scatter Deacon’s ashes and—a duty Buck has been dreading—read the will. Each member of this unique blended family has a say, as they squabble over turf and mull over their past and ongoing missteps, loves, and addictions. Angie, a talented chef in her own right, prepares lavish meals (rendered in mouthwatering detail, including recipes). The question looms—if Deacon’s Nantucket legacy can’t be shared, can it be saved?
No one captures the flavor and experience of a summer place—the outdoor showers, the seafood, the sand in the floorboards—like Hilderbrand.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-37514-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
