While swiftly paced with vivid characters, this saga set in August 1945 lacks realistic dialogue.
The world’s most powerful countries clash in the final days of World War II in this debut historical novel.
Watson, a retired Army intelligence officer, recounts the events of August 1945 through the eyes of American, Russian, and British leaders as well as soldiers and spies on all sides. The chapters and sections, each helpfully labeled with dates and locations, show how the politics and espionage of the last days of World War II helped sow the seeds of the Cold War. Stalin’s hunger for power and absolute control over his army are contrasted with the British and Americans’ war-weariness and complacency. Gen. George S. Patton and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery are forced to work together again, despite their radically different personalities, in the face of a danger few recognize. Soldiers from each of the once-allied countries are thrown back onto the battlefield before they’ve finished celebrating victory, but this arena quickly proves itself to be very different from the one they left. Meanwhile, Soviet leaders attempt the unenviable task of carrying out Stalin’s orders perfectly, no matter how ill-advised, and avoiding execution. And looming in the background is the ever present specter of the newly created atomic bomb, a weapon with the power to turn a political dispute into a world-ending war. The action in this book, the first in a planned series, is confined to the period between Aug. 9 and 28 in 1945, but it’s detailed enough to fill more than 300 pages. Well-researched and fast-paced, the historical narrative truly reads like a novel, with an abundance of colorful characters both real and fictional. But it is hampered by ubiquitous typos (a “gAllent charge,” an “aboroginal term,” etc.) and awkward dialogue that often reads more like a history textbook than people speaking. The author often has characters use random Russian or German words in contexts where they are already understood to be speaking those languages or makes them spill out historical exposition for no clear reason. This method will likely take the reader out of the story.
While swiftly paced with vivid characters, this saga set in August 1945 lacks realistic dialogue.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4797-1232-8
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
