Another intelligent and exciting superpowered thriller.
A man with the powers of flight and invisibility uses them to help investigate a sex-trafficking ring in this third novel in a series.
Five months ago, Will Stewart, 33, a regional pilot for Essex County Air Services in Wisconsin, survived the crash of his small plane—an accident that remains unexplained. He’s still waiting for a medical evaluation to clear him to fly again and restore his pilot’s license; his neurologist, Dr. Doug Stephenson, is concerned about some imaging results, which show a tangled, wiry structure in Will’s brain. But what Stephenson doesn’t know—and what almost no one else knows—is that the accident left Will with a strange and wonderful gift that he calls “the other thing”: He can become invisible and float in the air. Over the past months, he’s been perfecting a set of hand-operated propulsion devices that give him more control over his ability, which he’s used in two previous adventures to help his 20-something wife, Andrea “Andy” Taylor, a police detective, solve crimes and rescue innocents. Now, one night in early December,Will and Andy are having a rare date night when they get an emergency page from teenage Lane Franklin. She’s in on the secret, as Will used the other thingto save her from abduction a few months before; now his abilities are desperately needed to prevent Lane’s distraught friend from shooting herself. The girl, Sarah, is being blackmailed by someone who has a nude photo of her, taken somehow without her knowledge. Will quickly solves the immediate threat, but the investigation into how the picture was taken points toward a larger, more serious criminal enterprise targeting female high school athletes. Will must push his abilities to their limits in order to bring down the bad guys. As in the previous two outings, Seaborne (Divisible Man: The Sixth Pawn, 2018), a former flight instructor and charter pilot, delivers a solid, well-written tale that taps into the near-universal dream of personal flight. Seaborne makes the other thingintegral to the plot in a way that never feels gimmicky, and three novels in, the protagonist is still discovering new and intriguing aspects of his gift. Will’s narrative voice is engaging and crisp, clearly explaining technical matters while never losing sight of humane, emotional concerns. The environments he describes, from regional airlines to big-city police departments, feel absolutely real. Also, as before, the side characters are well-drawn, including Will’s fellow pilot, 22-year-old “Pidge” Page, who’s feisty, foulmouthed, and game for anything—the more dangerous, the better. The plot moves along briskly and has a satisfying conclusion, although the girl-in-trouble plotline is a bit similar to that in the first installment of the series. It also doesn’t follow up on the ending of the second book’s story, which suggested bigger plans for Will’s gift than reconnoitering and rescues. As the protagonist gains more control over the other thing, it would be nice to see him dream a little bigger.
Another intelligent and exciting superpowered thriller.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73219-496-0
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Trans World Data
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
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