A few awkward moments, but this fast-paced thriller has lots to recommend it.
In this military thriller, second in a series, a covert operative works a tricky, dangerous deception in North Korea with his girlfriend’s help.
Mackenzie Daniels, called Mac, is a skilled man to have on your side. Trained as a Navy SEAL, he belongs to the CIA’s Special Operations Group, “generally considered the most secretive special operations force in the United States.” He’s also tall, tanned, and “movie star handsome,” with an equally beautiful girlfriend, Astrid Reed, CEO and owner of the World News Corporation and one of the world’s richest women. Mac foils a deal between North Korea and Cuba to purchase enriched uranium with the help of Middle Eastern money—and then steals the uranium. At the same time, an unearthed cache of the nerve gas sarin gets loaded on an ISIS ship bound for North Korea. Mac must board that ship, destroy the gas, and gain access to Kim Jong Un. He’ll have a difficult task convincing Kim that the United States isn’t responsible for the missing uranium; getting out of the country will be even harder. Luckily, there’s a plan B: Astrid. Kim can’t pass up an interview with the World News Corporation and its global reach. Boffa (The Deed, 2007) offers almost nonstop action as his spies and counterspies spin secrets, lies, and cunning plans while employing an impressive array of gadgets, weapons, and hardware. While well-researched, the details can get overly specific (“The United States Marine Corps first adopted the Ka-Bar in November 1942”), and exposition unfolds clumsily. Boffa also relies for one plot point on a truly groan-worthy cliché, the Japanese soldier who doesn’t know the war is over. But Boffa’s spycraft is fun, like the dental floss that conceals a fine steel wire suitable for “garrote, saw, or restraint.” Characters, including minor ones, are well-developed, and Mac and Astrid get scenes of erotic and emotional intimacy, providing balance to the story.
A few awkward moments, but this fast-paced thriller has lots to recommend it.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-9115-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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