An exciting, original thriller with strong, appealing characters—readers will be eager for further installments.
In this military thriller, an American Marine and an Australian Special Forces soldier investigate an ex-Khmer Rouge general’s secret jungle camp.
By 1983, 23-year-old Lenny Cox has been a Marine for almost six years. His job often requires him “to do things that walked a fine moral line,” but his intelligence also requires him to question that fine line. For example, whF is America providing equipment—metal detectors and Geiger counters, apparently—to Gen. Tan, lately of the Khmer Rouge? Cox asks, “Aren’t the Khmer Rouge the bad guys?” According to Ventura, his CIA liaison, the matter is above Cox’s pay grade. According to Alice Brooks, Lenny’s girlfriend and legal attaché for the Department of Justice, America’s stance is about opposing the current Russian-backed regime in Kampuchea. Khmer Rouge, in hiding, is backed by China; Russia has nukes, while the Chinese don’t. But according to Professor Ung, a Cambodian archaeologist, Tan is greedily searching for a lost “temple of gold.” Whatever the purpose, Lenny agrees with his new friend Lucas Burnside, an Australian Special Air Service Regiment, that intel photos suggest that Tan is working people to death to accomplish his goals. Defying the rules, Lenny and Lucas helicopter into the jungle to find the truth and, they hope, protect innocents. In their rescue mission, they’ll encounter danger, a hidden temple, and a hungry tiger. Stewart (Red Shirt, 2018, etc.), a prolific writer of thrillers and mysteries, delivers top-notch action in his latest outing, billed as Book 1 in a series. He provides a great mix of military know-how, local color, good characterization, and compassion for the world’s “poor buggers” who need protecting. The mystery veers in some unexpected directions, with dramatic developments and settings. Stewart intelligently unfolds the story’s complicated geopolitical background in naturalistic conversation that doesn’t ever scream “exposition.” Seeing Lenny and Lucas’s bromance-y friendship develop from mutual admiration to bantering familiarity is also a pleasure.
An exciting, original thriller with strong, appealing characters—readers will be eager for further installments.Pub Date: May 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-945741-20-3
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Jacaranda Drive
Review Posted Online: July 8, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
