A polemical novel about the creeping influence of government in people’s lives.
Scheming bureaucrats line their pockets while denying people much-needed medical care in this high-stakes debut thriller.
Maarten Keyser has terminal cancer. Yet even though he’s a doctor with the Care Authority Institute—the government agency that regulates health care in the Netherlands—he can’t get the treatment he needs. That’s because the heavily regulated Dutch medical system routinely denies him and other patients experimental drugs that could save their lives. Maarten and his wife, Shifrah, a fiery ex-Mossad agent, set out to change that. But as they attempt to expose the “mega fraud” underlying the Dutch health care system—including insider trading that’s made Stronghold, the Institute’s director, rich—they become ensnared in a deadly international conspiracy that stretches from Amsterdam to Boston, Zurich and beyond. This slim novel will surely raise the hackles of anyone who fears socialized medicine, as it offers a dystopian vision of a society where treatments are parceled out according to arbitrary government standards, not patient needs, and where doctors providing alternative medicine are denounced in the press and hounded by government officials. Some readers will cheer the righteous, impulsive Shifrah and the more cautious, conciliatory Maarten as they strive to expose the government’s slogan of “the best healthcare for everyone” as a lie. However, the novel poorly explains the details of the conspiracy, and its economical writing style leaves little room for character development—especially with such a large cast of key players, including Dmitry Gritsin, a conniving Russian oligarch who believes “there’s a mountain of money to be made in high-class healthcare,” and Dick Admiral, a U.S. Secret Service agent tasked with silencing anyone who speaks out against the Institute. Often, the author seems more interested in making political points than in the finer points of character and plot. That said, there are some edge-of-your seat action sequences, including a shootout on a boat and a dramatic kidnapping. Readers may find the novel’s resolution, however, less than satisfying.
A polemical novel about the creeping influence of government in people’s lives.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481782289
Page Count: 198
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
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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