A complex, heartfelt political thriller.
Fuller (Turkey and the Arab Spring, 2014, etc.) examines the precarious morality of interventionist American foreign policy in this political thriller.
A prologue at the start of this novel asks, “Treason....What does it actually mean? Is it a thought? A state of mind? An act?” What follows is a morality play that examines just those concerns. Alex Anders was raised in Lahore, Pakistan, where his missionary parents operated an eye clinic to cater to the poor and spread the Christian Gospel by setting a compassionate example for their Muslim neighbors. When Alex returns from college in America, he notices the tension that’s resulted from Pakistan’s increasing Islamization. The turmoil results in his parents’ clinic being burned down by a Muslim mob and his father being beaten to within an inch of his life in front of the blaze. The experience marks a shift in Alex’s worldview. When he returns to the U.S., his Russian studies at school lead to his recruitment into the CIA, and he becomes part of the “black loam of a netherworld out there where secret armies meet secret armies to perpetuate the struggle.” His work leads him to Augusto Pinochet’s Chile and eventually back to Pakistan, where the war on terror has supplanted the Cold War in America’s global chess game. Yet, as the years wear on and Alex witnesses tragedy after tragedy—some public, some personal—his views begin to shift, and he’s forced to justify the tactics of his government when they place him at odds with the well-being of his family and friends. Fuller has written a very atypical thriller: its pace is deliberate, its immersion in its settings is complete, and it takes an intense interest in the emotional havoc of events. Alex is not simply an agent on assignment; he’s a man working to fix a world of which he is very much a part. (At least, he hopes his work is helping to fix it.) “Treason” is the first word of this book, and readers should not be surprised by its conclusion, but the emotional depth that Fuller employs to reach the outcome makes it an achievement.
A complex, heartfelt political thriller.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0993751417
Page Count: 484
Publisher: Bozorg Press
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2015
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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