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 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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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