A rampaging read with memorable characters that proves to be a promising first installment of a planned series.
In this rollicking debut novel, Hamlet successfully transforms bureaucratic infighting into an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil.
At the heart of the action is Anna Wei, a member of the National Security Agency’s Division of Unconventional Weaponry and Tactics, a kind of supernatural SWAT team. Like too many young women in the Washington, D.C., area, Wei is married to her job, although she hooks up occasionally with a striking half-vampire. Hers is not the healthiest lifestyle, as she and her Chaos squad mates employ black magic and enchanted weapons to battle the undead, such as ghouls and vampires. Her co-workers include an immortal and cursed paladin, a Nigerian shaman, a bookish shape-shifter, a brilliant, cranky wizard, and an inept summoner. DUWAT members often find themselves at odds with the “Churchies,” such as the Department of Defense’s Defense Intelligence Agency, who use white magic to combat similar paranormal threats. Both secret groups are soon targeting Ethan Morgan, a former Chaos agent who is now using death magic. Morgan is seeking revenge for the death of his younger brother, a soldier killed in a secret DOD “Perfect Cleansing,” and he doesn’t care who else dies in the process. He has an intricate plan to make himself so powerful that all the forces of good can’t stop him. The novel focuses on the search for Morgan and leads to a pitched conflagration at Arlington National Cemetery from which few walk away unscathed. Hamlet, an admitted, longtime slinger of red tape, does a masterful job of transforming mundane bureaucracy into a supernatural battleground. He has ably fused the disparate genres of political thriller and zombie apocalypse into one book that will satisfy fans of either—no mean feat. Best of all, Hamlet has set himself up to write more such tantalizing hybrids.
A rampaging read with memorable characters that proves to be a promising first installment of a planned series.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484862698
Page Count: 312
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 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
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
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