A superbly balanced, exactingly paced military thriller featuring a heroic attorney.
A lawyer and Army Reserve aviator seeks to stop the production of a faulty Marine vehicle in this novel.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Jake Baird is a man with a fledgling law practice. One day he meets with Lisa Thorpe, whose husband, Sam, died while test flying an experimental Marine vehicle called the XV-11. The incident happened at Maryland’s Patuxent River Naval Air Station, and Lisa believes that the military is keeping information from her. While Jake doesn’t immediately file her lawsuit, he promises to investigate the circumstances of Sam’s death (he can’t be too reckless going against the military with his new contingency-free practice, which pays most of a case’s expenses). The next day, Jake finds a note in his convertible telling him to show up at a nearby restaurant. There, he encounters a stranger who leaves him with a folder full of classified information relating to the XV-11—aka the Sea Eagle—and its development. Jake must be cautious in trusting this contact, since the possession of classified documents is illegal. Meanwhile, elements of the local Marine Corps prepare to leave for a mission in Afghanistan using the Sea Eagle, which has yet to prove itself safe or reliable in simulated combat situations. In this tale, Crouse (Aviation Law, 2006) delivers an extremely fluid blend of legal thrills and military action. He conveys the problems of the XV-11 with both specialized terms and clear visuals that make the reader feel war craft savvy; the Sea Eagle, for example, has “twenty common hydraulic lines—so a bullet in one could cause simultaneous failure of several different hydraulic systems.” Crouse also reveals tricks of the lawyer’s trade, as when Jake attaches the classified documents to a Request to Admit, a written maneuver that would compel the opposing party to acknowledge the information within. No military thriller would be complete, however, without an exiled scientist (Dr. Stanislas Kolinsky), a smart, beautiful foil (fellow lawyer Madison Wright), and a cabal of murderous operatives—all of which Crouse uses to polish up his patriotic narrative.
A superbly balanced, exactingly paced military thriller featuring a heroic attorney.Pub Date: June 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9974712-0-5
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Caromount Island Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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