In this by-the-numbers thriller, bad guy turned hero Sean Dillon becomes entangled with a mysterious and indiscriminate terrorist group known as ``January 30.'' Dillon (On Dangerous Ground, 1994, etc.), who once was an IRA hit man, is a bantam Superman as usual, casually walking into a death trap he tricks his foes into setting up just so that he can ``draw their fire.'' His superior, Brigadier Charles Ferguson, and his partner, Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, play their familiar roles (stolid and plucky, respectively). It helps that the villains of the piece are somewhat interesting. Rupert Lang, British Under Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has been a Russian spy for several years, together with his former Cambridge lover, professor Tom Curry. They and their control at GRU (the post-Soviet Russian Military Intelligence Agency) created January 30 to use as a cover-up for murders they carry out in their effort to create chaos in the West. The killers of January 30 aren't picky, and they don't leave ideological footprints. They hit Israelis and Palestinians, Protestants and Catholics, Americans and Russians. Renowned actress Grace Browning (the ``angel'' of the title) is relatively new to the group, driven there by fate and by demons resulting from a childhood tragedy. January 30 secretly saves Dillon's life in Belfast, eager to have him pursue a lead that will disrupt the machinations of the rival KGB in Beirut. Grace later kills a visiting American who is under Dillon's protection and subsequently has a second American, a prominent US senator visiting Ireland to aid in peace negotiations, in her sights, setting up a grand and melodramatic finale. Let it be known that all of Higgins's trademark weaknesses are evident throughout- -plodding prose, awkward and repetitive exposition, superficial characterization. But so what. The formula is tried and true, and it works. (Book- of-the-Month Club main selection)
Pub Date: March 22, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14042-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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