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The Star-Spangled Triangle

Name: The Star-Spangled Triangle
Author: James Luce

SECOND OF THE BLUE BATTALION CHRONICLES

by James Luce ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A complex, sometimes-muddled novel but one that’s worthy of comparison to Pynchon’s work.

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Luce’s (The Mount of Meggido, 2013) latest installment of the Blue Battalion Chronicles.

Two years have passed since the events of the author’s previous sci-fi novel, featuring near-future political wrangling and a host of eccentric characters, including the Rolls Royce–driving, stovepipe hat–wearing Dr. Frank N. Stein. It’s now 2019; the United States, now slightly altered and known as the Federated States of America, is recovering from a recent civil war, and violence is still rampant. After crime fighter Peter Hassel (a man who “knows almost everything about everything”) and voluptuous former New York street cop Rachel Rothburg survive an attack, they discover that it’s connected to a complex plot by the director of the FBI, Beatrice Orange. She has no qualms about murder and maintains a seemingly unquenchable thirst for power (“Her driving dream is world domination”). As Frank, Rachel, Peter and other members of the Blue Battalion investigate Beatrice and her motives, they trace a long series of seedy activities to Yale University, the Skull and Bones Society and other organizations. The story is complex and zany in its construction, with wacky, Thomas Pynchon–esque characters and secret societies, as well as regular bursts of gunfire. It’s at its best when it follows the stoic actions of its good guys (such as when Peter and Rachel handle an assailant) and brutality of its bad guys (including Beatrice’s cool-headed violence). That said, the story occasionally veers into confusion and sluggishness. The blunt character descriptions (“She has a Master’s in political science from San Francisco State and a law degree from Bolt Hall”) aren’t always particularly insightful or exciting. Similarly, a dinner scene at a New Haven club adds little to the story other than to show that one particular character is capable of eating a lot of food. These are mere bumps in the road, however, and readers looking for a wild tale of lively, violent people are unlikely to be disappointed.

A complex, sometimes-muddled novel but one that’s worthy of comparison to Pynchon’s work.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 233

Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher

Review Posted Online: April 16, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MOUNT OF MEGIDDO
by James Luce

- BOOK REVIEW
CHASING DAVIS
by James Luce

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THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

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Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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- SEEN & HEARD
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THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.