A well-told story about finding new beginnings in the aftermath of defeat.
Bourg’s debut novel takes an epic look at French defeat in Vietnam and the entwined lives of the locals, soldiers and foreign nationals trying to survive in unstable times.
Max Kohl, a German and a career soldier who grew up indoctrinated in the Hitler Youth, now finds himself in the French Foreign Legion. In 1954, he walks out of Isabelle, a remote area of the Dien Bien Phu province. Loc, a Tai who has sided with the French, leads Max out of the mountainous battlefield after the French are defeated by the Vietminh. The two become infamous and inseparable, navigating post-colonialism in Saigon and Laos. Max decides to no longer blindly follow the causes of those who employ him; instead, he leads his life by repaying the loyalty of others and protecting those he cares about. Max and Loc cross paths with Petru Rossi, a Corsican gangster focused on keeping his interests in the opium trade. Also in the opium and information business is CIA agent Tom Roche, who works with Max to help a mountain tribe escape to Laos. In turn, Max helps the Americans solidify their place in Vietnam through covert missions and violent encounters. In another third-person perspective, the book also follows Mei, who becomes a concubine for the French troops after being sold into prostitution by her father. Loc briefly crosses paths with Mei in Dien Bien Phu but isn’t reunited with her until after she is released from a communist labor camp. Bourg provides a detailed account of the battle that marks the fall of France in Vietnam as well as Max and Loc’s journey out of Isabelle. Many situations and characters are introduced, which Bourg capably manages, and character development is strong, particularly for a novel this heavily rooted in action. Most compellingly, Max changes from a hardened hired soldier to a loyal member of his makeshift family with Loc and Mei.
A well-told story about finding new beginnings in the aftermath of defeat.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9910076-0-8
Page Count: 784
Publisher: Three Greyhounds
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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