Sharp writing about computers and weapons systems, but the human element doesn’t quite boot up.
In this thriller, a freelance hacker uses his expertise at a covert U.S. intelligence unit trying to keep America’s computer networks secure.
After leaving government work and retiring to his cabin in Bliss, Mich., superhacker Mick Kelly remains in touch with his former superior, Air Force Col. Tammi Chan, who hires him for some “off the books” jobs that require a little wetwork. Mick takes on four different assignments for her: plugging a security breach at a California high-tech company; stopping a hacker who’s siphoning money from the bank accounts of oil millionaires; infiltrating a gang of Russian mobsters in the U.S. who are using blood diamonds from South Africa to fund terrorist activities; and exposing a Middle Eastern plot to steal secrets regarding a next-generation drone. In methodical fashion, Mick outhacks the hackers, then uses clever means so that their deaths can’t be traced back to Tammi’s outfit. Unfortunately, Mick becomes vulnerable when his past comes back to betray him. While in California for his first assignment, he meets a barmaid named Zoe Sorenson, who becomes his lover, and in Cleveland, Mick befriends a teenager whose parents were executed on orders from the Russian Mafia kingpin. Both these characters lend an emotional note to what is otherwise a coldblooded exercise in cyberwarfare and violence. Part of the novel’s problem is the fact that it struggles to build suspense over the course of Mick’s four assignments. The outcomes of the individual episodes never seem in doubt. Author Emke appears to be on firmer footing when describing how to break into a secure computer system than when dramatizing human relationships. In particular, Mick’s hero status is a little too good to be true; he comes across as more of a comic book superhero or perhaps the extreme wish fulfillment of a computer nerd.
Sharp writing about computers and weapons systems, but the human element doesn’t quite boot up.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1492942146
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2013
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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