Cobb, who knows his Navy, his gadgets, and his acronyms, is less at home with nuance. Still, in the world of...
Cobb's fourth salty tale about ships and sailors and chasing pirates on the bounding main—in 2008.
And about how the nonpareil US Navy Captain Amanda Lee Garrett, known throughout the fleet for impeccable professionalism (Sea Strike, 1998, etc.) comes within a whisker—not hers of course—of falling fecklessly in love. As undeniably sexy as he is irrefutably unsuitable, Makara Harcoman, an Indonesian multimillionaire, whose dark eyes reflect “a defiant boldness,” and whose freebooting behavior reflects everything a career-minded “lifer” should steer leagues away from, is the object of Mandy's affection. It all begins when Starcatcher, a high-tech industrial satellite, goes lost somewhere in the Indonesian archipelago. Well, not lost exactly—heisted, actually, by cutthroats in Makara's employ. Mandy, now TACBOSS of the Sea Fighter Task Force, a formidable special missions unit, is charged with (1) retrieving Starcatcher, and (2) wiping out “the piracy cartel.” In effect, this means wiping out Makara. But when Mandy and Makara set eyes on each other, sparks fly—in such electrifying profusion that for a while stalwart Navy officer Mandy is transmuted into tempestuous, every inch a man-hungry female Mandy. Like teenagers in hormonal paroxysm, the two find it impossible to keep their libidos in check and their hands off each other. Fortunately, and in the nick, Mandy recovers her equilibrium. Ensuing, then, are furious sea battles, stirring acts of derring-do, ploys parried by counter-ploys, and though Mandy does, quite carelessly—in the interest of a useful plot twist—manage to get herself kidnapped, the end turns out to be bad news indeed for Makara and his band of bandits. Makara, however, is not only handsome, virile, and brilliant: he's also elusive. Tune in next time.
Cobb, who knows his Navy, his gadgets, and his acronyms, is less at home with nuance. Still, in the world of technothrillers, grade it a solid B.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14849-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2001
A nervy modern-day rebellion tale that isn’t afraid to get dark or find humor in the darkness.
A young New York woman figures there’s nothing wrong with existence that a fistful of prescriptions and months of napping wouldn’t fix.
Moshfegh’s prickly fourth book (Homesick for Another World, 2017, etc.) is narrated by an unnamed woman who’s decided to spend a year “hibernating.” She has a few conventional grief issues. (Her parents are both dead, and they’re much on her mind.) And if she’s not mentally ill, she’s certainly severely maladjusted socially. (She quits her job at an art gallery in obnoxious, scatological fashion.) But Moshfegh isn’t interested in grief or mental illness per se. Instead, she means to explore whether there are paths to living that don’t involve traditional (and wearying) habits of consumption, production, and relationships. To highlight that point, most of the people in the narrator's life are offbeat or provisional figures: Reva, her well-meaning but shallow former classmate; Trevor, a boyfriend who only pursues her when he’s on the rebound; and Dr. Tuttle, a wildly incompetent doctor who freely gives random pill samples and presses one drug, Infermiterol, that produces three-day blackouts. None of which is the stuff of comedy. But Moshfegh has a keen sense of everyday absurdities, a deadpan delivery, and such a well-honed sense of irony that the narrator’s predicament never feels tragic; this may be the finest existential novel not written by a French author. (Recovering from one blackout, the narrator thinks, “What had I done? Spent a spa day then gone out clubbing?...Had Reva convinced me to go ‘enjoy myself’ or something just as idiotic?”) Checking out of society the way the narrator does isn’t advisable, but there’s still a peculiar kind of uplift to the story in how it urges second-guessing the nature of our attachments while revealing how hard it is to break them.
A nervy modern-day rebellion tale that isn’t afraid to get dark or find humor in the darkness.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-52211-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing...
Here’s a real find: a striking debut from an Afghan now living in the US. His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistan’s tragic recent past.
Moving back and forth between Afghanistan and California, and spanning almost 40 years, the story begins in Afghanistan in the tranquil 1960s. Our protagonist Amir is a child in Kabul. The most important people in his life are Baba and Hassan. Father Baba is a wealthy Pashtun merchant, a larger-than-life figure, fretting over his bookish weakling of a son (the mother died giving birth); Hassan is his sweet-natured playmate, son of their servant Ali and a Hazara. Pashtuns have always dominated and ridiculed Hazaras, so Amir can’t help teasing Hassan, even though the Hazara staunchly defends him against neighborhood bullies like the “sociopath” Assef. The day, in 1975, when 12-year-old Amir wins the annual kite-fighting tournament is the best and worst of his young life. He bonds with Baba at last but deserts Hassan when the latter is raped by Assef. And it gets worse. With the still-loyal Hassan a constant reminder of his guilt, Amir makes life impossible for him and Ali, ultimately forcing them to leave town. Fast forward to the Russian occupation, flight to America, life in the Afghan exile community in the Bay Area. Amir becomes a writer and marries a beautiful Afghan; Baba dies of cancer. Then, in 2001, the past comes roaring back. Rahim, Baba’s old business partner who knows all about Amir’s transgressions, calls from Pakistan. Hassan has been executed by the Taliban; his son, Sohrab, must be rescued. Will Amir wipe the slate clean? So he returns to the hell of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and reclaims Sohrab from a Taliban leader (none other than Assef) after a terrifying showdown. Amir brings the traumatized child back to California and a bittersweet ending.
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible.Pub Date: June 2, 2003
ISBN: 1-57322-245-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
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