A detective story whose imperfect protagonist boasts endearing qualities just below his rakish exterior.
A former CIA agent tries to prove a dead war hero isn’t actually dead and runs afoul of a private security company that may want to silence him in this thriller.
Max Bowman hasn’t worked for the CIA in years, but his old employers still throw the occasional job his way. The latest is Gen. Donald Davidson, who hires Max to find his son, 1st Lt. Robert Davidson. News outlets from a decade ago reported that Robert died in Afghanistan, but an unnamed source has told the general that his son’s alive. Max is inclined to agree, especially after Robert’s sister, Angela, apparently desperate that Max not take the case, sends teenage son Jeremy to scare him off. And Max is surely making someone else nervous: before he can question a retired colonel, an SUV smashes into Max’s rental car and the colonel’s house explodes. Robert, it seems, had an association with a private military organization called Dark Sky. One of the company’s operatives, taking on actor Chuck Connors’ persona in The Rifleman, is gunning for Max, as well as anyone who may have pertinent information relating to Robert. Max teams up with Jeremy, who wants to help his grandfather, and they head to a Dark Sky training facility in Montana, hoping to find answers—if they can survive long enough. The decidedly unlikable protagonist will grow on readers. He’s undeniably gruff; his first-person narrative remains relentlessly sarcastic and insists on detailing bathroom excursions. Max’s bluntness, however, makes him the story’s most honest character—and most reliable, since he’s surrounded by people either lying or hiding something. His unsentimental relationship with girlfriend Jules, too, is more believable than most: their repeated phone conversations consist of Jules’ loud curses in lieu of sweet nothings. There’s not much mystery but definitely suspense, with the Rifleman-lookalike putting Max, Jeremy, and maybe a few others in unmistakable peril. Canfield (co-author of What’s Driving You???, 2015) likewise supplements his genre piece with a profound theme of fatherhood. Max and Jeremy take a detour to see the teen’s estranged dad, while the candid narrator ultimately reveals why his two daughters hate him.
A detective story whose imperfect protagonist boasts endearing qualities just below his rakish exterior.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9975707-1-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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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