A colorful and engrossing thriller set in Australia and the Philippines.
A sequel chronicles the continuing adventures of two Australian intelligence officers in the postwar Pacific.
After their counterespionage duties in North Africa and subsequent work back in Australia to bring a murderous gang to justice, white officer Jamie Munro and his partner, the excellent tracker of half-Aboriginal descent Jacko O’Brien, are hoping that the remainder of their time with the Commonwealth Investigation Service will be a little quieter. Not so. When reports of a stranded ship reach them during Christmas lunch at the Hotel Darwin, the duo goes out to lend a hand. Approaching the storm-tossed ship, Jamie spots something in the waves: “As they came alongside the object, it appeared to be a small human body. They hauled the body into the cutter using a gaff and saw that it was indeed the body of a small boy.” Even more disturbingly, another child is found in the hull of the ship, this one alive but very scared. It seems that the vessel is trafficking children, though for what purpose Jamie and Jacko must investigate. The case brings them to the Philippines, where the destruction wrought by World War II has left thousands of orphans easy prey for predators and kidnappers. In their quest to find out who is buying these children, the CIS officers will probe deeper than perhaps is wise—especially when it provokes the kidnappers into taking one of their own. In this second installment of a trilogy, Kater’s (The Warramunga’s War, 2018) prose is reliably sharp and gripping, particularly when describing the devastation of the war: “They drew closer to the port area, where most of the buildings had been reduced to rubble and were covered in weeds, while those still standing were empty and badly damaged. The ground was heavily potholed and most trees seemed to have been cut to shreds.” This work feels more confident than the author’s previous Warramunga effort, and hews more closely to a traditional plot structure. The milieu is captivating and the characters are likable, which, when coupled with a perfectly serviceable crime story involving a shadowy syndicate, make for a pleasing bit of escapism.
A colorful and engrossing thriller set in Australia and the Philippines.Pub Date: June 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-648-27801-6
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Zeus Publications
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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