An engaging novel that focuses on an enigmatic female agent pursuing a murderer.
During the height of a presidential election, FBI agent Jade Harrington searches for a serial killer of right-wing radio hosts in this debut thriller.
In a 10-years-earlier prologue, a mysterious “I” describes whacking a classmate to death with a baseball bat as the victim wraps up a college radio broadcast. The novel then jumps to present-day Arlington, Virginia. Jade is a beautiful half-Japanese, half-black FBI agent trained in martial arts and largely a loner save for hanging out with her cat and lesbian best friend, Zoe. The rising young agent is tapped to lead a team to investigate the recent murder of conservative radio commentator Randy Sells. She soon pieces together that there’s been a history of such killings. Meanwhile, liberal Sen. Whitney Fairchild is running for president with the help of younger, handsome legislative director Landon Phillips. Jade and Whitney meet as the killer, dubbing himself TSK (Talk Show Killer), sends missives threatening that the murders will continue “until the Federal Communications Commission brings back the Fairness Doctrine or news networks take it upon themselves to present both sides of significant issues.” Whitney goes on Cole Brennan’s show on the Patriot News Network, supporting the right to free speech for all. Jade and Landon, introduced by Whitney, begin a flirtation that’s interrupted as TSK takes out one of Jade’s teammates, then kills an Ann Coulter type and holds Brennan and his family hostage. By novel’s end, Jade faces hand-to-hand combat with the killer and Whitney receives a surprising message from someone in her past. Brown has created strong, intriguing leads in Jade and Whitney, both seemingly poised to continue in future adventures. Digressions into political details, such as Whitney’s campaigning, occasionally disrupt the main plot, with such byroads also coming at the expense of more revelations about Jade, presumably this intended series’ main character. Still, Brown lays enough groundwork regarding this mysterious investigator, including placing an antagonist/possible love interest among her team, to whet interest for a next installment. Overall, a promising debut.
An engaging novel that focuses on an enigmatic female agent pursuing a murderer.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9969772-1-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
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