bookshelf

PROTECT HERO

Name: PROTECT HERO
Author: Gil Ortega
ISBN: 978-0615895444

by Gil Ortega ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2014

A worthwhile thriller, primarily for fans of military action.

bookshelf

In Ortega’s debut thriller, a U.S. Navy SEAL commander finds his personal life shattered by a kidnapping.

Ryan Williams is fiercely devoted to his fellow SEALs. As this novel opens, he throws himself on a grenade to save them during a firefight with terrorists who previously made an attempt on the life of the president of the United States. The grenade never goes off, but those seconds awaiting death haunt him long after he returns home. But as he considers retirement in order to devote himself more fully to his family, his children are kidnapped by members of a South American drug cartel. He realizes that he’ll need to use his considerable military skills to mount a rescue. Indeed, Williams is nearly superhuman in his talents and virtues: An expert marksman, he earned a black belt in karate at 14 and holds a fifth-degree black belt in the traditional Japanese art of ninjutsu. He also seems completely devoid of vices. These traits may make it hard for readers to develop very much empathy with him. Although over-the-top heroes aren’t unusual in thrillers, this book’s first-person narration amplifies the problem, as Williams often mentions how wonderful he is. Early on, the prose is sometimes unpolished: “We had advised the president that we didn’t think it was wise and that it was a very unsafe idea.” However, once the real action begins, these problems melt away. The prose becomes crisp with excitement, the pace quickens, and Williams finally becomes human, now that he’s facing a personal dilemma beyond anything he’s encountered in war. What’s more, Ortega infuses the action scenes with realism and adds a dark element to the final outcome that elevates it beyond the action genre.

A worthwhile thriller, primarily for fans of military action.

Pub Date: July 2, 2014

ISBN: 978-0615895444

Page Count: 266

Publisher: Infinitude Publishing

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

bookshelf

Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

bookshelf

Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.