A fast-paced, rewarding read whose combat realism is extraordinary.
A teenager develops a talent for killing, both in and out of the Army, in this riveting Vietnam-era thriller.
Rick Fountaine, 15, flees Connecticut after murdering the family that abused him and his mother. In Chicago, he finds a job and friends, but death follows him. He kills again—in self-defense, but no matter. He moves on to Peoria, then to Texas, then to California. His fake IDs catch up with him: Because he has pretended to be older than he is, he is drafted. Posted first to Texas, his platoon is shipped out to Vietnam. There he excels. His talents for finding the right way through the jungle and spotting ambushes—perhaps, he thinks, something innate from his Native American heritage—make him no friends with his commanding officer, but others appreciate him, including the CIA. He goes on a black-ops mission, providing critical covering fire for his team. Wounded on what was supposed to be a safe patrol, he is discharged. He connects with an old Army buddy and finds that there is a civilian demand for a man with his skills. He joins a team of fellow veterans working as “independent contractors” and soon finds himself pitted against embezzlers, high-end art thieves and Chinese drug smugglers. First-time author Le Beau has delivered a potent mixture of teen rebellion and true-to-life combat. Enormously compelling, this book doesn’t let you put it down. Le Beau, a Vietnam veteran, realistically depicts jungle patrols and firefights like no other. Yet there are quibbles. The first chapter makes Fountaine seem like an irredeemable psychopath, a notion the rest of the book does not support. What made him so good at violence needs to be reworked. The frequent switching from past to present tense doesn’t work, either, and the pacing at times is almost too fast. And who is the intended audience? It has the tone of a YA novel because of Fountaine’s voice and youth, but it could easily have mainstream appeal as well.
A fast-paced, rewarding read whose combat realism is extraordinary.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483415758
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2014
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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