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
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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