Bell’s protagonist holds her own in her first outing and will surely be ready for more harrowing circumstances in a...
A woman running a CIA safe house in Alaska garners unwelcome attention while trying to decipher a program written by her late software-engineer husband in this debut thriller.
It’s been several months since University of Alaska finance professor Kate Adams’ husband, Max, vanished in Singapore, only to later turn up dead from an apparent drowning. She decides to give herself closure by taking a sabbatical from the university to focus on a couple of research projects. Her CIA pal and former lover, Brad Oakley, however, has a different plan for her. They’d reunited in Washington, D.C., just prior to Max’s disappearance, and he now hopes to make Kate a CIA safe-house manager. She reluctantly agrees, mainly because the agency can provide data for her research as well as provide her with materials that were recovered during the investigation into Max’s death. She spends the bulk of her time at the somewhat isolated cabin, battling harsh weather, maintaining order (which isn’t an easy feat with some guests, including the abrasive Delgado), and tending to her vegetable garden. She finally peruses Max’s intricate computer program and links it to companies that are “major players in the financial industry” and make millions of trades daily. Then a group of mysterious men, looking for Kate, locates and attacks the safe house. Bell’s story thrives due its resolute protagonist. Although Kate rarely talks or thinks about Max (who’s more a catalyst than a character), she’s sympathetic as an introvert whose free-market stance during an economic crisis affords her few friends. Bell takes her time establishing the stellar, remote setting; indeed, Kate doesn’t delve into Max’s program until just past the story’s halfway point. She and Brad, however, stir up drama with their intimate relationship, as he visits the safe house often when dropping off guests. It soon becomes abundantly clear that someone’s spying on her at the cabin, and the intensity ramps up in the final act. nThere are also teases of potential future events, as when Kate, while ducking baddies, promises herself that she’ll someday buy and learn how to use a sniper rifle.
Bell’s protagonist holds her own in her first outing and will surely be ready for more harrowing circumstances in a potential sequel.Pub Date: June 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-71078-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Tolling Bell Press
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
