Playboy editor Malanowski (Loose Lips, 1995, etc.) deftly shoots fat fish in the barrel that is the nation’s capital.
The U.S. vice president, wondering if he really couldn’t do a much better job than his boss, finds a way to answer that interesting question.
Godwin Pope is restless. The filthy rich Silicon Valley entrepreneur, having been sweet-talked into running with the low-life Louisiana politician who cut him off at the knees in the presidential primaries, has found the pitcher of lukewarm spit that is the vice-presidency to be as stultifying as all of its incumbents warned it would be. Worse than the boredom for handsome bachelor Pope is the frustration of seeing his opponent-turned-running mate royally screwing up the job that Godwin could have done well. This is not just his opinion. President Jack Mahone’s poll figures make President George W. Bush’s numbers look robust. Everybody agrees he’s in over his head. And now the party insiders have started to admit that the wrong man is in the Oval Office. The last straw for Godwin is a request from the president to do what in less august circumstances would be called pimping. Then the vice president, who made his zillions seeing and seizing opportunities that would be invisible to lesser mortals, spots a way to bring Mahone’s wretched rule to an end. There is a splendid confluence of chance events, involving a satellite sale to the Chinese, the dreams of the president’s country singer brother and some spectacularly compromising videos of a prominent football player that, with just the right tweaking from Godwin, will almost certainly do the trick. Does it bother Godwin that his manipulations unwittingly involve the love of his life, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter trying to redeem her career after revelations of sexual impropriety? Or that he is essentially framing an innocent man? Or that his scheme will involve his only real friend? Hey. Politics ain’t beanbag.
Playboy editor Malanowski (Loose Lips, 1995, etc.) deftly shoots fat fish in the barrel that is the nation’s capital.Pub Date: July 17, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-385-52048-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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