A no-nonsense, maverick cop and his novice but dependable partner navigate government corruption, changing alliances and inner demons to solve a murder mystery.
Superintendent Lee Bang is a tough detective that does things his own way. Lee isn’t formally educated like his constituents or as concerned with the opinions of others. While his roughness doesn’t earn him many friends, he is an efficient and dedicated agent. Lee’s young partner, Constable Sun Ming, is a slower study than Lee. Sun’s loyalty and work ethic, however, prove to be invaluable assets on the job. The partners’ intelligence, intuition and strength are put to the test when they are assigned a particularly puzzling case. An unidentified body has been found in Tiananmen Square, mangled by multiple vehicle tracks. Despite the gruesomeness of the crime, there seem to be no witnesses and few reliable clues. As the heroes press on in their work, they discover that perhaps things aren’t what they seem, and the very people leading their search could be the ones with the most to hide. Murphy pulls out all the stops of your classic maverick tough guy story down to the protagonist’s relationships with women. Lee’s rebellious prowess naturally attracts all of the women in his life. However, he thinks of them merely as perfunctory tools. About the office secretary, he ruminates, “And add that you’re still pissed at me because our one-night stand never turned into a two-nighter.” However, Lee eventually gains a love interest whose affections are more challenging and alluring. She becomes a crucial aid in the solving of his case. The plot takes so many twists and turns that it’s impossible to know who is and isn’t on the side of the story’s heroes. However, Murphy peppers the story with plenty of dramatic metaphors to keep the reader amused, such as, “The scream from the man was very high-pitched, like a hamster in pain.” Ultimately though, the resolution of the mystery leaves much to be desired in terms of logic and clarity.
Reads like a 1980s action movie with improbable action sequences, dramatic one-liners and conspiracy.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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