Despite an overabundance of storylines, this engrossing tale delivers deep industry knowledge and rounded characters.
A project manager turns a surprise layoff into an opportunity for payback in this debut novel.
Adameit’s narrative centers on Dan Gamble, a project manager with Stygian, an electronics product manufacturing firm. Gamble, who has been in the industry for three decades, is respected and well liked by his peers and business partners, but isn’t thrilled with his employer’s practices and demeanor. Still, he’s been with Stygian for almost five years, at which point the employee stock ownership program fully vests, so Gamble hangs in there. Then he’s unceremoniously let go three months short of vesting. Despite the shock, Gamble agrees to help tie up some loose ends, and in the process, discovers something he shouldn’t. Angry over his treatment, he has an idea on how to extract justice from Stygian, and discovers he has more friends and allies than he thought willing to help him get it. Adameit, who also has three decades of EPM experience, writes about the ins and outs of the industry with knowledge and flair, making what might be otherwise dry information come to life. Unfortunately, this verve doesn’t always extend to the dialogue, which sometimes veers between excessively explanatory and downright florid. Despite the inconsistent dialogue, the author does fine work in sketching in the characters. Each one is distinct on the page, with consistent traits and reactions. And despite the antagonists’ almost cartoonishly callous greed, nearly all of the players evince at least one somewhat redeeming value or trait. One of the major subplots, involving Gamble and his cohorts committing an extremely shady act in order to gain leverage on the primary antagonist, demonstrates the characters also display a few negative qualities. This subplot is just one of many—so many that the number of threads and machinations bogs down the book and dilutes its impact.
Despite an overabundance of storylines, this engrossing tale delivers deep industry knowledge and rounded characters.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73385-032-2
Page Count: 522
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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SEEN & HEARD
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