Overly detailed, but offers interesting characters, plenty of excitement and the pleasure of seeing a complicated plan...
A respected surgeon and decorated Army veteran wrestles with ghosts from the past in this thriller.
Dr. Michael Reece has come far from his early days growing up in an orphanage called Sycamore House. A skilled ob-gyn surgeon and father of two, he’s also a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, where he lost his lower left leg and earned two medals. Now, for his bravery in action, he’s about to be awarded the highest military decoration: the Medal of Honor. The publicity fervor that ensues throws a spotlight not just on the doctor, but also on Sen. James Haxton of North Carolina, Reece’s mentor and Sycamore House’s benefactor, who is the chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Strangely, Reece hasn’t kept in touch with Haxton. But when someone murders the senator in his secluded getaway, Reece must confront a carefully buried past. His survivor’s guilt stems from more than just wartime experience. In his debut novel, Campbell—himself a decorated veteran, physician and member of the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps—supplies insider details that enliven his scenes of battle, surgery and award-ceremony protocol. The story of Reece’s heroism is told too many times, and the level of detail (such as which child sits next to which adult in the car) can bog things down. But when the action does pick up midway, it’s exciting and involving, even if the nature of Reece’s secrets isn’t hard to guess. Once trouble begins, Reece’s reasons for not just going to the authorities are less flimsy than in the usual thriller; they tie in nicely with the leave-no-man-behind ethos that earned him his medals. To some, Campbell’s uncritical presentation of the military and war (though not politics) may seem overly rosy, even sentimental; others will enjoy the sense of brotherhood and respect for sacrifice. A satisfying ending sees an appropriate distribution of rewards.
Overly detailed, but offers interesting characters, plenty of excitement and the pleasure of seeing a complicated plan coalesce.Pub Date: March 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482747812
Page Count: 492
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strongly felt, if not terribly gripping, sendoff for a Turow favorite nearly 35 years after his appearance in Presumed...
Trying his final case at 85, celebrated criminal defense lawyer Sandy Stern defends a Nobel-winning doctor and longtime friend whose cancer wonder drug saved Stern's life but subsequently led to the deaths of others.
Federal prosecutors are charging the eminent doctor, Kiril Pafko, with murder, fraud, and insider trading. An Argentine émigré like Stern, Pafko is no angel. His counselor is certain he sold stock in the company that produced the drug, g-Livia, before users' deaths were reported. The 78-year-old Nobelist is a serial adulterer whose former and current lovers have strong ties to the case. Working for one final time alongside his daughter and proficient legal partner, Marta, who has announced she will close the firm and retire along with her father following the case, Stern must deal not only with "senior moments" before Chief Judge Sonya "Sonny" Klonsky, but also his physical frailty. While taking a deep dive into the ups and downs of a complicated big-time trial, Turow (Testimony, 2017, etc.) crafts a love letter to his profession through his elegiac appreciation of Stern, who has appeared in all his Kindle County novels. The grandly mannered attorney (his favorite response is "Just so") has dedicated himself to the law at great personal cost. But had he not spent so much of his life inside courtrooms, "He never would have known himself." With its bland prosecutors, frequent focus on technical details like "double-blind clinical trials," and lack of real surprises, the novel likely will disappoint some fans of legal thrillers. But this smoothly efficient book gains timely depth through its discussion of thorny moral issues raised by a drug that can extend a cancer sufferer's life expectancy at the risk of suddenly ending it.
A strongly felt, if not terribly gripping, sendoff for a Turow favorite nearly 35 years after his appearance in Presumed Innocent.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4813-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Assembly-line legal thriller: flat characters, lame scene-setting, and short but somehow interminable action: a lifeless...
Two defrocked Secret Service Agents investigate the assassination of one presidential candidate and the kidnapping of another.
Baldacci (The Christmas Train, 2002, etc.) sets out with two plot strands. The first begins when something distracts Secret Service Agent Sean King and during that “split second,” presidential candidate Clyde Ritter is shot dead. King takes out the killer, but that’s not enough to save his reputation with the Secret Service. He retires and goes on to do often tedious but nonetheless always lucrative work (much like a legal thriller such as this) at a law practice. Plot two begins eight years later when another Secret Service Agent, Michelle Maxwell, lets presidential candidate John Bruno out of her sight for a few minutes at a wake for one of his close associates. He goes missing. Now Maxwell, too, gets in dutch with the SS. Though separated by time, the cases are similar and leave several questions unanswered. What distracted King at the rally? Bruno had claimed his friend’s widow called him to the funeral home. The widow (one of the few characters here to have any life) says she never called Bruno. Who set him up? Who did a chambermaid at Ritter’s hotel blackmail? And who is the man in the Buick shadowing King’s and Maxwell’s every move? King is a handsome, rich divorce, Maxwell an attractive marathon runner. Will they join forces and find each other kind of, well, appealing? But of course. The two former agents traverse the countryside, spinning endless hypotheses before the onset, at last, of a jerrybuilt conclusion that begs credibility and offers few surprises.
Assembly-line legal thriller: flat characters, lame scene-setting, and short but somehow interminable action: a lifeless concoction.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2003
ISBN: 0-446-53089-1
Page Count: 406
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
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