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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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