An underdeveloped thriller with a protagonist that could have been fleshed out more.
A veteran homeland-security agent vows justice in the mysterious death of a young auditor investigating the plagued production of a Pentagon fighter jet in this thriller.
Ohio-based cost analyst Ann Redmond, an eager new hire working for the U.S. Department of Defense, is sent to Launch Weapons Systems in California to audit the progress of a $400 billion F-35 Lightning II fighter-jet project. There are concerns that the manufacturer is lagging behind its delivery schedule and will miss an upcoming live weapons test. It seems like a simple assignment, which makes her lurid murder all the more shocking and suspect. Agent Sam Pruett, “in the twilight of his career,” allows himself to become personally involved in the case and is “determined to see it through to its ominous conclusion.” That conclusion, though, will likely be obvious to the reader; the title of the book is a mild spoiler in itself. But by the time Pruett sorts it all out, there are still more than 100 pages to go. Bronsen’s debut is several undeveloped books in one. The focus initially is on the financial dilemma of Jay Forest, a recently fired avionics worker who’s tens of thousands of dollars in debt to a loan shark who figures prominently in the story’s early going, only to unceremoniously disappear mid-book. Then a former colleague, who runs Launch Weapons Systems, hires Jay to get the jet project on track and he’s charged to put a team together. The sections dealing with the fighter jet’s production and the technology behind it are the most credible in the book, and they’ll please tech-heads. Another subplot involves a struggling, family-owned company that resorts to unscrupulous methods to try to wrest the F-35 project from Launch Weapons Systems. The “open-and-shut” murder case, though, doesn’t generate much suspense or reader engagement, and it’s not even clear why Pruett is so invested in this particular case. His antagonistic working relationship with a local police detective (a more impressive sleuth) at first suggests a mismatched-buddy relationship. Fortunately, Bronsen does avoid this cliché, but the dialogue throughout is still trite.
An underdeveloped thriller with a protagonist that could have been fleshed out more.Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5188-9276-9
Page Count: 340
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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