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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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