A twisty thriller that proves to be a wily, if textually dense, adventure.
From debut author Falcon comes a novel about an ancient musical manuscript and those who seek to decipher it.
When readers first meet Douglass Crenshaw, the middle-aged academic is down on his luck. Informed that he will shortly be terminated from his teaching position in the music history department at Northwestern University, he finds himself admitting, “At fifty-three my career is crawling to a pathetic end and no one cares.” All is not lost, though, as an old colleague, Fatima al-Salam of Trinity College, informs him of an intriguing manuscript that’s surfaced in Ireland. The Ballad of Light, as it’s known in its English translation, is a mixture of Spanish and Arabic text thought to be from 15th-century Islamic Spain. After word leaks of its existence, Fatima feels that she’s being watched closely; later, someone trashes her office, but why and who? Back in the year 66, the Judean Jacob ben Honi has deserted his high position with a Roman legion. Highly educated and agile in combat, he ventures to Jerusalem, where trouble is afoot. The destruction of that city is only a handful of years away, and the feared Sicarii, a new faction, causes a fair share of distress and bloodshed. How and when, engaged readers will wonder, will these two narratives collide, and what does it mean to the world at large? Mixing historical fiction with modern-day sleuthing, the book offers a great deal of information via its many characters. The supporting players are many and varied, including Crenshaw’s “confident but not arrogant” graduate assistant Lucy and the desert-hating Roman Marcus Trajan. Although the author’s overarching quest is very Indiana Jones–esque, the cantankerous, cellphone-disavowing professor is the anti–Harrison Ford. Dotted with scenes of library investigations (“Once in the Archives reading room, Lucy explains her needs to a skeptical librarian who reluctantly decides that she is not there to pillage the place”), the book seems intended for readers who can relate to a deep-seated excitement over archived materials.
A twisty thriller that proves to be a wily, if textually dense, adventure.Pub Date: June 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9962263-0-1
Page Count: 594
Publisher: Contemporary Music Project
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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