All in all, a bracing, satisfying ride.
“Coolsville” is a high-tech Dublin suburb where Mordaunt’s edgy, intriguing debut unfolds in a brave new near-future when battles are waged over computer programs and gene pools.
Not that the Irish author is above some old-fashioned fisticuffs. When the mega-conglomerate WentWest, Inc., finds itself the target of a mysterious, seemingly all-powerful cyber-terror group called Mantra, the burly and brutish CEO, J.P. Gillespie, isn’t shy about cracking heads. After all, it’s bad enough that Mantra has made world headlines by electronically sabotaging every recent WentWest-sponsored sporting event. But a secret WentWest project designed “chemically” to alter the hard-core inmates of nearby WentWest Correctional into meek, prolific worker drones is threatened with exposure. One of WentWest’s project physicians was ready to leak the sordid details to the press, and now Sister Jasmine Ylang-Ylang, a sort of super-sleuth nun, is snooping around, quietly scouring for clues. She may have found an ally in Papa Charlie McCormack, a WentWest archivist who’s teaming with coworker Marshall McLemon to create an online museum exhibit aimed at preserving vintage turn-of-the-millennium culture. As if Gillespie’s plate weren’t full enough, he also has to deal with his suave superior, Henri McCambridge-LeMans, chairman of WentWest Europe, who has arrived ostensibly to personally supervise WentWest’s anti-Mantra countermeasures. In truth, McCambridge-LeMans has his own secret project: to live forever, using a cutting-edge gene-splicing technique. All he needs is a willing donor, and who better than his unsuspecting distant cousin, Marshall McLemon, a test-tube baby no less, who looks young for his age. Meanwhile, not all of Mordaunt’s plot balloons quite stay aloft, but there’s still enough imaginative breeze blowing to keep our interest keen. Crisp prose and a colorful cast help, from Gillespie’s oily jazz musician son “Bluey” to his two bumbling henchmen, Mick and Frank Cooper (no relation, except distantly to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern).
All in all, a bracing, satisfying ride.Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-09-945026-7
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Vintage UK/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2005
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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