A gleefully and wonderfully odd protagonist eases readers into a bare-bones plot.
Mulhern’s (Assumptions and Other Stories, 2016, etc.) drama covers years in the life of Molly Bonamici, who’s indifferent to death and whose most discernible emotion is emptiness.
There are those who consider Molly weird. Even her own parents, who raised her Roman Catholic, are bothered by the fact that she doesn’t believe in God. As a teenager in 1980, Molly is closest to her Nonna, who recognizes that her granddaughter is a bright, beautiful girl. Molly is intrigued by death, if not outright fascinated, but is disturbed when a reputed faith healer tells her that she’ll be “surrounded by death” throughout her life. Soon thereafter, she witnesses her first dead body, an apparent suicide. This incident doesn’t faze Molly, which is apparent to others who see that she isn’t visibly distraught. The 17-year-old graduates early and heads to Boston University, where death follows: a prank apparently results in a student’s fatal heart attack, and Molly loses someone closer to home. A couple of decades later, Molly is a high school English teacher and self-professed asexual woman. She moves from Boston to Florida with new best friend, gay fitness trainer Gabe Callaghan. The still faithless woman becomes a bit reclusive, but Gabe is determined to make a believer out of her. Molly, however, will soon have an epiphany of a thoroughly different sort. The novel, compiled at least in part of previously published short stories, reads like snippets—though the best ones—from a larger tale. Molly’s apathy toward death isn’t as strange as other characters think, more a curiosity than an obsession. This is likewise true for her religious views; Molly doesn’t reject religion but continually (and interestingly) questions it, like why would God allow horrible things to happen. And she’s forever debating her belief: she’s agnostic, then atheist, then unsure. Mulhern’s narrative hits the occasional standstill, where Molly repeatedly ponders the same issues with Nonna or Gabe. But while she may have a cold exterior, her distinctiveness is an appealing quality and often amusing. Molly, for example, discussing a dead body, tells a store clerk: “[M]aggots are a good source of protein....Do you sell word processors?”
A gleefully and wonderfully odd protagonist eases readers into a bare-bones plot.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5238-0780-2
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A page-turner with the kind of small details that lend unquestionable authenticity.
A spy dealing with personal trauma is called back into action to stop the use of a dangerous chemical weapon.
A former Army helicopter pilot and FBI special agent, Bentley delivers his debut novel with the introduction of Defense Intelligence Agent Matt Drake. After an op in Syria went sideways and his best friend was maimed, Drake walked away carrying heavy emotional baggage. Haunted by those he couldn’t save and in self-imposed exile from his wife in order to protect her, Matt wants nothing to do with his old life at the Defense Intelligence Agency. But when he's brought back under duress to help stop terrorists from using an untraceable chemical weapon against Americans, Drake feels a lurking sense of obligation, and before he knows it he's back on duty. The seeming purity of Drake’s call to serve is contrasted with the petty political infighting within the highest reaches of government. A chief of staff for the president is angling to jam a CIA director who has political ambitions of her own, and Drake’s mission falls right in the middle of this elaborate political scheme. While the flow of the story seems most natural during the shoot'em-up action scenes, this is a novel with an emotional core, and that may be what makes it stand out from other thrillers of a similar ilk.
A page-turner with the kind of small details that lend unquestionable authenticity.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0511-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Complex, epic, and rich in historical detail—an uplifting story of finding friendship behind enemy lines.
During World War II, five Americans head to Nazi-occupied France on a secret mission for the OSS, but only four return.
Twenty years later, OSS case officer Alistair Renault finds a clue in a history book that the missing member of their group might have survived after all. He flashes back to the beginning of the operation, when he first assembled the team he dubbed “Dragonfly”—three men and two women who were chosen for their special skills and secret connection to the war. The five recruits bond in training, but once on their mission, they split up to avoid being caught by the enemy and communicate by making marks on a mural painted on the courtyard wall of a convent. Their cover stories offer surprising glimpses of daily life for the French and their German occupiers. (And a character list at the beginning of the book helps keep their real names and aliases straight.) Christoph Brandt, a track-and-field coach who couldn’t be drafted to the American military due to his missing thumb, learns firsthand how the Hitler Youth are taught to bully. He ingratiates himself with the Nazis by tutoring the son of the head of the Abwehr German intelligence agency in France. But the Nazis won’t be fooled for long. Civil engineer Samuel “Bucky” Barton risks being discovered by Christoph’s old friend from his hometown who betrayed his country to join the Third Reich. Working side by side with the enemy, the Americans are surprised to learn that some of the Nazis are not what they seem. Tired, disillusioned, and looking for redemption, they blur the line between friend and foe, giving Dragonfly both a way into the organization and a way out of the war.
Complex, epic, and rich in historical detail—an uplifting story of finding friendship behind enemy lines.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-53873222-9
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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